A Framework of Environmental Modelling and Information Sharing for Urban Air Pollution Control and Management

Abstract

More effective environmental pollution control and management are needed due to the increasing environmental impacts from a range of human activities and the growing public demands for a better living environment. Urban air pollution is a serious environmental issue that poses adverse impacts on the health of people and the environment in most metropolitan areas. In this paper, we propose a geoinformatics augmented framework of environmental modelling and information sharing for supporting effective urban air pollution control and management. This framework is outlined in terms of its key components and processes including: 1) an integrated, adaptive network of sensors for environmental monitoring; 2) a set of distributed, interoperable databases for data management; 3) a set of intelligent, robust algorithms and models for environmental modelling; 4) a set of flexible, efficient user interfaces for data access and information sharing; and 5) a reliable, high capacity, high performance computing and communication infrastructure for integrating and supporting other framework components and processes.