Mapping air pollution in urban Tirana area using GIS
Banja, Manjola et al
The recent development of spatial data infrastructure in the frame of geographic information systems (GISs) has created the new era of different applications in the field of environment. The scope and the scale of urban areas problems make the GIS a powerful tool for management of spatial and temporal data, complex analyses and visualization. The ability to manage a number of spatial and temporal data formats, data structures created in the frame of the GISs open the ways to building air quality information systems that synthesize geospatial and temporal air quality data to support spatial-temporal analysis and dynamic modeling. Mapping of air pollution within a GIS environment for 6 selected points at the urban area of Tirana during 2009 was developed. Surveys for air pollutants as NOx, NO2, O3 and SO2 were conducted using passive sampler Analyst based on European Directive (EC Directive 96/62 EC ed EC Directive 99/30) that indicates the passive sampling as an indicative method for preliminary evaluation of air quality. Two-one month periods over winter and summer period are chosen to expose the passive samplers. The pollutant concentrations for each period are visualized in the planar view of the Tirana urban area. GIS was used to compare the two planar views representing the periods of passive sampling in order to investigate the influence of meteorological conditions. The visualized result has the potential to provide valuable information for pollution impact analysis, by including also the dimension of the influenced area and population. The spatial assessment of air pollution within Tirana urban area can be exploited by environmental and medical authorities in order to plan their future strategies.
Event: International Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructure 2010
Only personal, non-commercial use of this document is allowed.