Internet GIS-Based Air Quality Monitoring and Forecast System for the Indian Region Using FOSS4G

• Published in: Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2022-04, Vol.50 (4), p.657-675
• Main Authors: Oberai, Kapil, Saran, Sameer, Jha, Ashutosh Kumar, Singh, Charu, Kant, Yogesh, Srivastava, Shuchita, Singh, Sanjeev Kumar, Mitra, Debashis, Chauhan, Prakash
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air monitoring; Air pollution; Air quality; Airborne particulates; Algorithms; Animation; Applications programs; Deforestation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Environmental monitoring; Freeware; Geographic information systems; Health risks; Internet; Mathematical models; Meteorological data; Meteorological parameters; Modules; Nitrogen dioxide; Numerical prediction; Optical analysis; Optical thickness; Outdoor air quality; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Pollutants; Prediction models; Remote sensing; Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry; Research Article; Satellites; Scientific visualization; Sulfur dioxide; Urbanization
• ISSN: 0255-660X; 0974-3006
• DOI: 10.1007/s12524-021-01478-4

Rapid industrialization, widespread urbanization and deforestation have resulted in the deterioration of air quality in many countries. Air pollution, also called the ‘silent killer’, is one of the major health risks being faced nowadays. Considering the rapidly alarming health risk due to environmental situation of deteriorating air quality in India, the Internet GIS-Based Air Quality Monitoring & Forecast System ( https://airquality.iirs.gov.in ) has been designed and developed using Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Applications (FOSS4G). The system aims towards synergistic use of numerical prediction models for forecasting of dust, particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10 ), gaseous pollutants (CO, O 3 , SO 2 and NO 2 ) and air quality index. Ground-based inputs and remote sensing-based datasets of aerosol optical depth and particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10 ) are also utilized to monitor air quality of Indian region. It enables real-time dissemination of model-generated forecast fields and satellite-based inputs utilizing the dissemination potential of Internet towards monitoring and analysis of air quality over Indian region by the stakeholders, researchers and general public. It is developed solely using open-source tools, following Open Geospatial Consortium standard and Web technologies. It follows three-tier architecture and includes modules for visualizing and analysing air quality data accessible over easy to use and intuitive thin web client. Major contribution is to develop lightweight 3D animation module for meteorological data visualization. Here, compression algorithm is implemented which results in significant (5x) reduction in file size for visualizing the meteorological parameters over the web.