A decision support tool for the assessment of air quality in urban areas: An application for Athens, Greece

Abstract

A Decision Support Tool (DST) for the assessment of air quality in the urban area of Athens, Greece was designed and developed. The DST consists of air pollution data from twelve monitoring stations and meteorological data from seven meteorological stations in the greater Athens area, and emphasises on the analysis of air pollution episodes. The DST by being constructed using modern object oriented and user interface techniques confronts successfully the problem of manipulating large amounts of experimental data. In addition the DST performs multidimensional statistical treatment and analysis and can present data and results in graphs and tables for a user defined time window; it is thus considered a useful tool for the assessment of air quality in Athens as well as for the exploitation of the spatial, temporal and long‐term variations of air pollution data and the study of air pollution episodes. The operational test of the DST for Athens demonstrated fast assimilation times and user‐friendly structure. Finally the DST can be used for the assessment of air quality in other urban areas, at the precondition of the availability of air pollution and meteorological data.