Stockholm air quality management system

Stockholm air quality management system
The main objective of the Stockholm air quality management system is to satisfy the user requirements in Stockholm in terms of: cost effectiveness flexibility air quality information Cost effectiveness Poor environmental decision information can imply later reconstruction or introducing other measures in order to achieve necessary air quality standards. Such costs by far exceed the costs for an appropriate environmental planning tool in the early stages of an urban planning process. Getting as much "value for money" as possible is a political topic and a real necessity in Stockholm. Consequently, the air quality management system in Stockholm is primarily designed to support the urban planning activities and environment and health studies. In addition, the need for cost effectiveness is also applicable for the air quality management system itself. Therefore it is important to find the best cost-effective monitoring techniques and modelling tools. Flexibility The Stockholm air quality management system is a modular, multi-user and multitask system. It is of vital importance that: the number of users can be extended the covering geographical area can be extended complementary methods and modelling tools can be added Starting with an area covering the Stockholm City, the system has been extended to the area of Stockholm County 1993-94 and to the County of Uppsala 1997-98. The number of system users and customers is steadily increasing and the various research projects utilising the system increase as well.
Air quality information There is a demand from the general public for real time air quality information. Especially for asthmatic persons it is important to provide daily air quality information and forecasts. Such information is supplied in terms of a local nitrogen dioxide index for the city centre in Stockholm. Another important use of the system is the comparison of real time air quality information with other urban areas in Europe. Through Internet, easy access to global air quality networks is possible. Common air quality indicators are important tools for any air quality network taking part in an international co-operation.

The main objective of the Stockholm air quality management system is to satisfy the user requirements in Stockholm in terms of:

cost effectiveness
flexibility
air quality information

Cost effectiveness

Poor environmental decision information can imply later reconstruction or introducing other measures in order to achieve necessary air quality standards. Such costs by far exceed the costs for an appropriate environmental planning tool in the early stages of an urban planning process. Getting as much "value for money" as possible is a political topic and a real necessity in Stockholm.

Consequently, the air quality management system in Stockholm is primarily designed to support the urban planning activities and environment and health studies.

In addition, the need for cost effectiveness is also applicable for the air quality management system itself. Therefore it is important to find the best cost-effective monitoring techniques and modelling tools.

Flexibility

The Stockholm air quality management system is a modular, multi-user and multitask system. It is of vital importance that:

the number of users can be extended
the covering geographical area can be extended
complementary methods and modelling tools can be added

Starting with an area covering the Stockholm City, the system has been extended to the area of Stockholm County 1993-94 and to the County of Uppsala 1997-98. The number of system users and customers is steadily increasing and the various research projects utilising the system increase as well.

Air quality information

There is a demand from the general public for real time air quality information. Especially for asthmatic persons it is important to provide daily air quality information and forecasts. Such information is supplied in terms of a local nitrogen dioxide index for the city centre in Stockholm.
Another important use of the system is the comparison of real time air quality information with other urban areas in Europe. Through Internet, easy access to global air quality networks is possible. Common air quality indicators are important tools for any air quality network taking part in an international co-operation.

Air quality management system

The Stockholm air quality management system operated by SLB·analys is a specialized GIS application for air quality management. The Stockholm application includes most of the common GIS characteristics - possibilities to digitize all air pollution sources, registration of information about the sources, powerful possibilities of all kinds of data analysis, a great variety of presentation alternatives, interfaces to other GIS systems etc.

The Stockholm application is designed for the main objective of simulating air quality in future plans and retrospective studies. The three areas of air quality management, measurements, emissions and modelling are fully integrated in the SMHI-Airviro system.

Air quality management organisation

In order to make better decisions about plans or actions having impact on air quality the politicians have an urgent need to get better information about different scenario alternatives. Dispersion of polluting substances in the air is a complex problem that need to be better understood before taking good decisions.

High quality is needed in the description of environmental consequences before plans and actions are taken. The needs for these descriptions are formed by local and regional authorities in the planning process. The plans and the descriptions are often public and need to have a good information design to be understood by the public.

Consultant firms, energy companies and industries need effective planning and simulation tools for calculation and presentation of emission, dispersion, imission and deposition of pollutants .

Research institutes need effective methods and tools both for monitoring exposures of pollutants to individual persons and simulation of exposures backwards. For the simulations historical databases are needed. For the exposure assessment in environmental epidemiological studies connection to different powerful GIS-systems is also needed.

Asthmatic persons need information about air quality and short term forecasts. This information is distributed every weekday by local radio stations and newspapers. Air quality information is updated on the Internet every hour.

Links with meteorological centers

The Stockholm air quality management system is supported by hourly data from a regional meteorological network. Besides this comprehensive network there are links to meteorological data on the national and regional levels. SODAR data is also exchanged every hour with a regional military meteorological centre.

The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) supports the AIRVIRO system. The system support in the Stockholm application includes licenses, continuous upgrading and service. Development cooperation includes research projects, international references and technical support in Swedish export projects.

Links with traffic departments

The air quality management team at SLB·analys has links to traffic and transport organizations on national, regional and local levels.

In several research projects on the national level SLB·analys cooperates with the Swedish Road Administration and the Swedish Environment Protection Agency. The Swedish Road Administration on the national level supports the air quality management system in Stockholm with emission factors for different road types, vehicle types and substances. Link data in the Stockholm system are updated from the national road database. Emission factors for air traffic and sea traffic are also updated from investigations at the administrations on the national level.

The regional Swedish Road Administration in Stockholm is the head contractor for all large road construction projects. SLB·analys has simulated air quality in a lot of such projects in the Stockholm region.

Within the Stockholm- Uppsala Air quality Management Association the updating of all local emission databases is performed by the 31 municipalities. In these municipalities the local road administrations are supporting the local road databases with data and assessments using local knowledge about the road traffic. From this point of view there are strong links from the local road network to the road emission database.