Abstract
Abstract. A GIS-based web-mapping system is presented, aimed at providing specialists, stakeholders and population with a simple, while scientifically rigorous, way to obtain information about people exposure to air pollution in the city of Rome (Italy). It combines a geo-spatial visualization with easy access to time dimension and to quantitative information. The study is part of the EXPAH (Population Exposure to PAHs) LIFE+ EC Project, which goal is to identify and quantify children and elderly people exposure to PM2.5-bound Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere of Rome, and to assess the impact on human health. The core of the system is a GIS, which database contains data and results of the project research activity. They include daily indoor and outdoor ground measurements and daily maps from simulation modeling of atmospheric PAHs and PM2.5 concentration for the period June 2011-May 2012, and daily and average exposure maps. Datasets have been published as time-enabled standard OGC Web Map Services (WMS). A set of web mapping applications query the web services to produce a set of interactive and time-aware thematic maps. Finding effective ways to communicate risk for human health, and environmental determinants for it, is a topical and challenging task: the web mapping system presented is a prototype of a possible model to disseminate scientific results on these items, providing a sight into impacts of air pollution on people living and working in a big city, and shipping information about the overall exposure, its spatial pattern and levels at specific locations.
Highlights
The EC funded LIFE+ EXPAH (Population Exposure to PAHs) project, points towards addressing the environmental and health problems caused by emission, dispersion and transformation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere
EXPAH data included in the Geographic Information System (GIS) and shown in the web maps are a subset of the results of the research carried out by the project teams
The problem could be overcome by resampling the raster files to a higher resolution: this would led to a huge increase of the dimension of the multi-temporal datasets (366 grids of 60x60km2 for each pollutant) that are queried in almost real-time by the multitemporal functionality of the web maps
Summary
The EC funded LIFE+ EXPAH (Population Exposure to PAHs) project (http://www.ispesl.it/expah/index.asp) (conclusion June 2014), points towards addressing the environmental and health problems caused by emission, dispersion and transformation of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere. The GIS specialist is required to build a coherent model to manage very different data types, and to emphasize spatial information of data that are often mainly handled by a different point of view, e.g. along the timeline. These aspects were faced and worked out in a GIS-based time-aware web-mapping system devoted to convey information about air pollution and people exposure in the city of Rome and in its outskirts
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