Difference between revisions of "GEO User Requirements for Air Quality Report"

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<nowiki>***</nowiki> '''Report is now being modified in [http://wiki.esipfed.org/images/5/51/GEO_US0901a_-_Report_AQ_Health_V4_notes.doc V4 Report Word Doc]''' ***
  
 
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==Introduction==
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==1. Introduction==
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This report articulates Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA  based on an analysis of 55 publicly-available documents, including documents produced by Group on Earth Observations’ Member Countries and Participating Organizations.   
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This report articulates Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA  based on an analysis of 60 publicly-available documents, including documents produced by Group on Earth Observations (GEO) member countries and participating organizations.   
  
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===GEO and Societal Benefit Areas===
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===1.1 GEO and Societal Benefit Areas===
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The Group on Earth Observations (GEO, www.earthobservations.org) is an intergovernmental organization working to improve the availability, access, and use of Earth observations to benefit society. GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) . GEOSS builds on national, regional, and international observation systems to provide coordinated Earth observations from thousands of ground, airborne, and space-based instruments. GEO is focused on enhancing the development and use of Earth observations in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBA):
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The Group on Earth Observations (GEO, www.earthobservations.org) is an intergovernmental organization working to improve the availability, access, and use of Earth observations to benefit society. GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GEOSS builds on national, regional, and international observation systems to provide coordinated Earth observations from thousands of ground, airborne, and space-based instruments. GEO is focused on enhancing the development and use of Earth observations in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBA): Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate, Disasters, Ecosystems, Energy, Human Health, Water, Weather
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Agriculture Biodiversity Climate Disasters Ecosystems Energy
 
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Human Health Water Weather
 
  
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=== GEO Task US-09-01a===
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===1.2 GEO Task US-09-01a===
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The objective of GEO Task US-09-01a is to establish and conduct a process to identify critical Earth observation priorities within each Societal Benefit Area and those common to the nine SBAs. Many countries and organizations have written reports, held workshops, sponsored projects, conducted surveys, and produced documents that specify Earth observation needs. In addition, researchers and practitioners have also identified and recommended key Earth observation needs in publications and peer-reviewed literature.  Task US-09-01a focuses on compiling information on observation parameters from a representative sampling of these existing materials and analyzing across the materials to determine the priority observations.     
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The objective of GEO Task US-09-01a is to establish and conduct a process to identify critical Earth observation priorities within each Societal Benefit Area (SBA) and those common to the nine SBAs. Many countries and organizations have written reports, held workshops, sponsored projects, conducted surveys, and produced documents that specify Earth observation needs. In addition, researchers and practitioners have also identified and recommended key Earth observation needs in publications and peer-reviewed literature.  Task US-09-01a focuses on compiling information on observation parameters from a representative sampling of these existing materials and conducting analyses across the materials to determine priority observations.     
  
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===Purpose of Report===
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* 10-year implementation plan note.
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The primary purpose of this report is to articulate the critical Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA, specifically the health and well-being effects of Air Quality. The Human Health SBA EO priorities are addressed by two additional reports: Infections Diseases and Aeroallergens. The intent of the report is to describe the overall process and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, and determine a set of Earth observation parameters and characteristics. The report describes the prioritization methodologies used to determine the priority Earth observations for this SBA.  The report also provides information on key challenges faced, feedback on the process, and recommendations for process improvements.   
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===1.3 Purpose of Report===
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The primary purpose of this report is to articulate the critical Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA, specifically Air Quality as it affects health and well-being. The Human Health SBA EO priorities are addressed by two additional reports within GEO Task US-0901a: Infections Diseases and Aeroallergens . The intent of the report is to describe the overall process and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, and to determine a set of Earth observation parameters and characteristics. The report describes the prioritization methodologies used to determine the priority Earth observations for this SBA.  The report also provides information on key challenges faced, feedback on the process, and recommendations for process improvements.   
  
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The primary audience for this report is the GEO User Interface Committee (UIC), which is managing Task US-09-01a for GEO.  The GEO UIC will use the results of this report in combination with reports from the other eight SBAs.  The GEO UIC will perform a meta-analysis across all nine SBA reports to identify critical Earth observation priorities common to many of the SBAs. Based on the nine SBA reports, the GEO UIC will produce an overall Task US-09-01a report, including the common observations and recommendations for GEO processes to determine Earth observation priorities in the future.
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The primary audience for this report is the GEO User Interface Committee (UIC), which is managing Task US-09-01a for GEO.  The GEO UIC will use the results of this report in combination with reports from the other eight SBAs.  The GEO UIC will perform a meta-analysis across all nine SBA reports to identify critical Earth observation priorities common to many of the SBAs. Based on the nine SBA reports, the GEO UIC will produce an overall Task US-09-01a report, including the common observations and recommendations for GEO processes to determine Earth observation priorities in the future. The report’s authors anticipate that the GEO Secretariat, Committees, Member Countries, Participating Organizations, Observers, Communities of Practice, and the broader communities associated with the Human Health and other SBAs are additional audiences for this report.
  
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The report’s authors anticipate that the GEO Secretariat, Committees, Member Countries, Participating Organizations, Observers, Communities of Practice, and the communities associated with the Human Health: Air Quality SBA  are additional audiences for this report.
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===1.4 Scope of Report ===
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This report addresses the Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA.  In particular, this report addresses the sub-area of Air Quality within the Human Health SBA (see Section 3 for more details). The report provides some background and contextual information about Air Quality and Health.  However, this report is not intended as a handbook or primer on Air Quality and Health, and a complete description of the Human Health SBA is beyond the scope of this report.  Please consult the GEO website (http://www.earthobservations.org) for more information about the Human Health SBA.   
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===Scope of Report ===
 
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This report addresses the Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA.  In particular, this report addressed the sub-areas of Air Quality within the Human Health SBA (see Section 3 for more details). The report provides some background and contextual information about Air Quality and Health.  However, this report is not intended as a handbook or primer on Air Quality and Health, and a complete description of the Human Health SBA is beyond the scope of this report.  Please consult the GEO website (http://www.earthobservations.org) for more information about the Human Health SBA.   
 
  
 
The report focuses on the Earth observations for Air Quality and Health, independent of any specific technology or collection method.  Thus, the report addresses the “demand” side of observation needs and priorities.  It does not address the specific source of the observations or the sensor technology involved with producing the observations.  Similarly, any discussions of visualization tools, decision support tools, or system processing characteristics (e.g., data format, data outlet) associated with the direct use of the observations are beyond the scope of this report.
 
The report focuses on the Earth observations for Air Quality and Health, independent of any specific technology or collection method.  Thus, the report addresses the “demand” side of observation needs and priorities.  It does not address the specific source of the observations or the sensor technology involved with producing the observations.  Similarly, any discussions of visualization tools, decision support tools, or system processing characteristics (e.g., data format, data outlet) associated with the direct use of the observations are beyond the scope of this report.
  
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The term ''Earth observation'' refers to parameters and variables (e.g., physical, geophysical, chemical, biological) sensed or measured, derived parameters and products, and related parameters from model outputs.  The term Earth observation priorities refers to the parameters deemed of higher significance that others for the given SBA, as determined through the methodologies described within.  The report uses the terms “user needs” and “user requirements” interchangeably to refer to Earth observations that are articulated and desired by the groups and users in the cited documents.  The term “requirements” is used generally in the report to reflect users’ wants and needs and does not imply technical, engineering specifications.
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The term ''Earth observation'' (EO) refers to parameters and variables (e.g., physical, geophysical, chemical, biological) sensed or measured, derived parameters and products, and related parameters from model outputs.  The term ''Earth observation priorities'' refers to the parameters deemed of higher significance than others for the given SBA, as determined through the methodologies described within.  The report uses the terms “''user needs''” and “''user requirements''” interchangeably to refer to Earth observations that are articulated and desired by the groups and users in the cited documents.  The term “requirements” is used generally in the report to reflect users’ wants and needs and does not imply technical, engineering specifications.  
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Following this introduction, the report discusses the overall approach and methodologies used in this analysis (Section 2).  Section 3 describes the Human Health SBA and the specific sub-areas.  Section 4 articulates the specific Earth observations for Human Health relevant to Air Quality: (a) ambient concentrations (b) Air pollution sources, emissions, transport, transformation and removal and (c) Human exposure and health effects. Section 5 presents the priority observations for Air Quality and Health. Sections 6 & 7 present additional findings from the analysis of the documents and any recommendations.  The Appendices include the documents cited and sourced as well as any additional information describing aspects of Air Quality and Human Health and Welfare.
 
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== Methodology and Process==
 
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This section documents the general process followed and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, determine Earth observation parameters and characteristics, and establish a set of priority Earth observations for this SBA. 
 
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===Task Process===
 
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The GEO UIC established a general process for each of the SBAs to follow in order to ensure some consistency across the SBAs.  This general process for each SBA involves 9 steps, as summarized in the following list:
 
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*'''Step 1: Identify Analyst and Advisory Group for the SBA'''
 
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*'''Step 2: Determine scope of topics within the SBA'''
 
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*'''Step 3: Identify documents regarding observation priorities for the SBA'''
 
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*'''Step 4: Develop analytic methods and priority-setting criteria'''
 
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*'''Step 5: Review and analyze documents for priority Earth observations needs'''
 
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*'''Step 6: Combine the information and develop a preliminary report'''
 
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*'''Step 7: Gather feedback on the preliminary report'''
 
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*'''Step 8: Perform any additional analysis'''
 
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*'''Step 9: Complete the report on Earth observations for the SBA'''
 
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A detailed description of the general US-09-01a process is available at the Task website http://sbageotask.larc.nasa.gov or GEO website.  Some steps in the process occurred simultaneously or iteratively, such as identifying documents (Step 3) and reviewing documents (Step 5).
 
  
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===Analyst and Advisory Group===
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Following this introduction, the report discusses the overall approach and methodologies used in this analysis (Section 2).  Section 3 describes the Human Health SBA and the specific sub-areas.  Section 4 articulates the specific Earth observations on Air Quality for Human Health and well-being. Section 5 presents the priority observations for Air Quality and Health. Sections 6 and 7 present additional findings from the analysis of the documents and any recommendations.  The Appendices include the documents cited as well as additional information describing aspects of Air Quality and Human Health and Welfare.
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The Health and Air Quality group had an “Analyst” and an “Advisory Group” to conduct the process of identifying documents, analyzing them, and prioritizing the Earth observations.  The Analyst served as the main coordinator to manage the activities.
 
  
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==== Analysts ====
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== 2. Methodology and Process==
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For Health and Air Quality, the Analysts were Rudolf Husar and Stefan Falke.  He/she ... (brief paragraph on Analyst, including appropriate information to establish his/her credentials and qualifications as the Analyst).
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This section documents the general process followed and describes the specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, determine Earth observation parameters and characteristics, and establish a set of priority Earth observations for this SBA. It (1) outlines the general task process approach, (2) identifies the analyst and the advisory group and (3) describes the methodologies used for this meta analysis, which consist of (a) document selection, (b) an approach for defining and extracting AQ EO needs and (c) analytical methods for prioritizing Earth Observations for AQ.    
  
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The Health and Air Quality Analysts served ... (sentence/paragraph about the arrangement for the Analysts involvement (a pro bono basis as a representative of organization RRR, under contract to organization RRR, etc.)
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===2.1 Task Process===
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The GEO UIC established a general, but uniform, process that is to be applied by each of the SBAs. The intent is to ensure a level of consistency across the SBAs. This general process for each SBA involves nine steps, as summarized in the following list:
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*Step 1: Identify Analyst and Advisory Group for the SBA
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*Step 2: Determine scope of topics within the SBA
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*Step 3: Identify documents regarding observation priorities for the SBA
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*Step 4: Develop analytic methods and priority-setting criteria
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*Step 5: Review and analyze documents for priority Earth observations needs
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*Step 6: Combine the information and develop a preliminary report
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*Step 7: Gather feedback on the preliminary report
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*Step 8: Perform any additional analysis
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*Step 9: Complete the report on Earth observations for the SBA
  
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==== Advisory Group ====
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A detailed description of the general US-09-01a process is available at the Task website, http://sbageotask.larc.nasa.gov, or the GEO website.  Some steps in the process occurred simultaneously or iteratively, such as identifying documents (Step 3) and reviewing documents (Step 5).
  
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The first step in the nine-step GEO Task US-09-01a process is the formation of an expert Advisory Group (AG) that helps identify appropriate documents, provides feedback on the analysis approach and also reviews the preliminary and final reports. For the Air Quality and Health SBA, 17 potential AG members were identified. The sources of AG candidate names came from major Agency representatives, selections by the Analyst team, as well as additional AG candidates suggested by the AG members themselves.  Ten of the invited candidates responded favorably and are listed in the Table below, two invitations were declined, three candidates did not respond and two candidates are still pending. Effort was made to include representatives from developing nations and to achieve a representation across geographic domains. Additional AG members would be desirable, particularly from the developing countries.  The current AG is cordially invited to suggest additional candidates.
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===2.1 Analyst and Advisory Group===
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The Health and Air Quality group included an “Analyst” and an “Advisory Group” to conduct the process of identifying documents, analyzing them, and prioritizing the Earth observations. The Analyst served as the main coordinator to manage the activities.   
  
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The Advisory Group for Health and Air Quality consisted of 12 experts from the field of Health and Air Quality or some subset thereof.   Table X shows the Advisory Group members, including: Name, GEO Member Country or Participating Organization, Organizational Affiliation, Geographic Region, Specialty/Area of Expertise.
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==== 2.2.1 Analysts ====
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The Analysts for this Air Quality and Health EO Requirement Report were Drs. Rudolf Husar (lead analyst) and Stefan Falke (co-analyst).  Rudolf Husar is a Professor of Energy. Environmental and Chemical Engineering and director of Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA) at Washingon University in St. Louis, MO. Over the past 35 years Husar conducted parallel research in air pollution (sources, transport, transformations, effects) and in environmental informatics i.e. the application of science, engineering and technology to environmental information processing. Husar has served on committees of NAS, EPA CASAC as well as international advisory groups, including WMO, IGAC.  Recently Husar's research group has actively participated in various aspects  of the evolving GEOSS, including the GEOSS Common infrastructure (GCI), the Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP), and the GEOSS Air Quality Community of Practice (CoP). Stefan Falke is a Research Assistant Professor of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and Manager of Geospatial Information Services for Energy and Environment at Northrop Grumman. Stefan serves as co-chair, with Rudolf Husar, of the Earth Science Information Partners Federation (ESIP) Air Quality Workgroup, which fosters interaction among satellite, aerial, surface, and modeled data producers, brokers, and consumers, and that is setting the foundation for an international GEOSS Air Quality Community of Practice. He has also recently been appointed to lead the Atmospheric Science Interest Group within the Working Group on Information Systems & Services (WGISS) in the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) with an initial focus on interoperability in access, tools, and contextual guidance for using remotely sensed atmospheric composition information across multiple countries.
  
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The Analyst identified the Advisory Group members through personal contacts, web searches.  The Analyst attempted to recruit Advisory Group members from all geographic regions and multiple developing countries.  The Analyst contacted #/numerous people to participate on the Advisory Group.  # expressed interest; # did not respond; and # were unable to participate but provided document references or suggestions for other possible Advisory Group members.  Overall, the Advisory Group includes members from 7 countries and 5 continents, including 3 from developing countries.
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The Analysts prepared this report through funding from EPA, though a subcontract to ERG, Jan Connery, Project Officer.
  
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The primary roles of the AG were to (assist in identifying documents, assess methodologies and analytic techniques, assess prioritization schemes, review findings, and review reports.)  The primary contact with the AG was thorugh (telecons, emails, etc.); the Advisory Group met (in person, telecom, etc) # number of times during the course of the analysis.
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==== 2.2.2 Advisory Group ====
  
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Other information about selection of AG, roles of AG.   
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The first step in the  nine-step GEO Task US-09-01a process is the formation of an expert Advisory Group (AG) that helps identify appropriate documents, provides feedback on the analysis approach and also reviews the preliminary and final reports. For the Air Quality and Health SBA, 18 potential AG members were identified. The sources of AG candidate names came from the UIC, major Agency representatives and the Analyst team. Additional AG candidates were suggested by the AG members themselves.  Eleven of the invited candidates responded favorably, two invitations were declined, three candidates did not respond and two candidates are still pending. Effort was made to include representatives from developing nations and to achieve a representation across geographic domains. Additional AG members would be desirable, particularly from developing countries.
  
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Note: Comments on the success of the AG or suggestions how to improve the AG should be in section 7.
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The current Advisory Group consists of 11 experts from the field of Health and Air Quality or some subset thereof.  Table 1 shows the Advisory Group members, including: Name, GEO Member Country or Participating Organization, Organizational Affiliation, Geographic Region, Specialty/Area of Expertise. Overall, the Advisory Group includes members from 7 countries and 5 continents, including 3 from developing countries. Five AG members have parallel expertise in air quality as well as human health.  
  
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'''Table 1. List of Advisory Group Members*'''
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<small>
 
{| {{table}}
 
{| {{table}}
 
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Name'''
 
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Name'''
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| Kjetil Tørseth ||Norway ||Norwegian Institute of Air Research ||Europe||Air Quality  
 
| Kjetil Tørseth ||Norway ||Norwegian Institute of Air Research ||Europe||Air Quality  
 
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|-
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| Michael Gatari ||- ||University of Nairobi||Africa ||Air Quality
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| Michael Gatari ||Kenya ||University of Nairobi||Africa ||Air Quality  
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|-
 
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| * ||China ||Peking University ||Asia ||Air Quality
 
 
|}
 
|}
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</small>
  
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==== Air Quality CoP ====
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The primary roles of the AG were to assist in identifying documents, assess methodologies and analytic techniques, assess prioritization schemes, review findings, and review the project report.  The primary forms of communication with the AG were email and through the [http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/GEO_User_Requirements_for_Air_Quality interactive open project wiki page]. This report was prepared using an interactive wiki page on the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) server. The members of the Analyst group used the wiki to collaboratively create the content, perform the editing and to share the evolving report with the Advisory Group. The open wiki approach also provided a platform for sharing the document as it evolved and for receiving feedback both from the AG and the GEO Air Quality Community of Practice (ESIP Air Quality Work Group). The wiki, being a living, participating document, facilitates future expansion or revision of this Critical Observations for Air Quality beyond the limited period of this initial GEO task.
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This GEO Task mentions that 'Wherever possible, the Advisory Groups involve members of the GEO Communities of Practice.'
 
  
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===Methodology===
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===2.3 Methodology===
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This section provides a general description of the processes, analytic methods, and approaches the Analyst/AG used to identify documents, analyze them, and establish a set of priority Earth observations. (Note: this section is essentially a summary of your activities in Step 4 of the nine-step process.)
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This section is a summary of analytic methods and approaches the Analyst used to identify documents, analyze them, and establish a set of priority Earth observations. No standard approaches are available for establishing EO requirements and priorities applicable to all SBAs. The GEO Task Leader, Lawrence Friedl, has encouraged the Analysts of each SBA to be innovative and possibly consider multiple approaches toward developing their respective methodologies for EO requirements and priorities. However, strong emphasis was placed on the need to describe and document the chosen methodologies.  
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====Documents  (general description on how Analyst/AG identified documents; not a list of the documents)====
 
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This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to identify documents and select a representative sampling for the analysis.  Note:  Section 3.3 provides specific information about the documents, such as number of them, geographic distribution, etc.
 
  
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[http://wiki.esipfed.org/images/0/02/GEO_Task_US0901a_-_Overview.pdf Task US-09-01a methodology] required examination of a wide range of geographically distributed sources for potentially relevant, publicly available documents, including:
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====2.3.1 Document Selection====
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* International, regional, and national documents focused on data sources, applications, or research priorities
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This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to identify documents and select a representative sampling for the analysis. [http://wiki.esipfed.org/images/0/02/GEO_Task_US0901a_-_Overview.pdf Task US-09-01a methodology] recommended the examination of a wide range of publicly available, geographically distributed sources for potentially relevant documents, including: International, regional, and national documents, project reports, surveys, workshop and conference summaries and peer-reviewed journal articles.
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* Project reports (e.g., findings from major regional/national projects)
 
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* Surveys (e.g., of users of solar resource data)
 
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* Workshop and conference summaries
 
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* Individual peer-reviewed journal articles.
 
  
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The Analyst used a 3-part methodology for identifying potentially relevant documents: (1) online searches, and (2) requests for [[GEO User Requirements for Air Quality Documents-AG|Advisory Group members to suggest]] documents (3) Referred to the references listed in the documents identified through other methods to provide potential new sources of information. The online searches conducted by the Analyst focused on the websites of international, regional, and national organizations engaged in Air Quality and Health. This 3-prong approach was used to ensure that the set of documents ultimately analyzed would have broad geographic distribution and represent both developed and developing countries. The Analyst emphasized to Advisory Group members that any documents suggested for analysis need to be publicly available. This resulted in an initial set of potentially relevant documents.
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For the identification of candidate documents, the Analyst used three sources: documents that were known to the Analyst; documents recommended by the [[GEO User Requirements for Air Quality Documents-AG|Advisory Group]] and documents retrieved through online searches. The documents (5) from the Analyst's prior knowledge were based on decades of experience in AQ data analysis, network design and decision support for AQ management. The documents (15) provided by the AG contributed a broad range of educated perspectives as well as geographic coverage of developing countries. The online web searches focused on websites of international, regional, and national organizations engaged in Air Quality and Health, such as WHO, CDC and HEI. Online searches yielded most of the selected documents. The general online searches included search for published articles through Google Scholar and also general Google search using combination of keywords, such as 'air pollution', 'health', 'Africa'.
  
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[http://wiki.esipfed.org/images/0/02/GEO_Task_US0901a_-_Overview.pdf GEO US0901a Task Overview]
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The above selection process for qualified documents relies on expert judgment and is inherently subjective. Effort was made to select documents that contain specific statements on the EO requirements, documents that report EOs, and documents that discuss EO requirements for AQ. As with previous analyses conducted for other SBAs, documents that contain such complete and directly applicable information were found to be rare. Hence, the key criteria for selection was that the document had to contain references to specific AQ EO parameters and attributes that are either needed or currently in use. In fact, most documents contain information on specific air pollutants, spatial and temporal coverage and resolution, and some information on data quality.  
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* Task US-09-01a focuses on compiling and analyzing the results and observation needs expressed in those existing documents.  
 
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* the task will harvest information identified in existing, publicly-available documents.  
 
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* GEO is especially interested in ensuring an international breadth
 
  
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Once a document was identified as relevant it was assigned a number, a hard copy was printed and a table was attached to help the analysts extract the needed information about coverage, spatial and temporal resolution, accuracy and latency for each parameter identified in the document. The table included a form for information about the document: the title, region, document type and AQ subcategory as well as any EO needs. This document information along with an online link to the document was stored on a wiki webpage the group devoted to each document. The wiki pages were used to deposit both structured metadata and also loose annotations on each document. These metadata were contributed by several members of the AQ and Health Analyst group. In this manner, an online catalog of all documents was created. 
  
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The EO characteristics extracted from each selected document and deposited in the 'tables', constitute the main source of information for this meta analysis. The EOs are tabulated using the methodology given is section 2.3.2. The EO priorities are then derived using a set of objective and subjective weighing factors described in section 2.3.3.
  
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'''From Climate:'''<br>
 
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The analysis used literature reviews, internet searches, and Advisory Group recommendations to identify documents with information related to observation requirements. International working groups and intergovernmental agencies have previously compiled information about global Earth observation requirements for climate, and their reports are included in the analysis. These include reports by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and experts working under the auspices of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). The documents also include assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Reports by regional and national working groups and agencies provided information about regional requirements. These documents include reports of regional workshops and assessments by national meteorological and environmental agencies. Mission planning documents for future Earth observation systems were also a source of information about priority requirements.
 
  
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'''From Energy:'''<br>
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====2.3.2 Analytic Methods for Gathering EOs ====
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Task US-09-01a methodology required examination of a wide range of sources for potentially relevant, publicly available documents, including:
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The EO Requirements methodology development started with guidance provided by the Task leader in the form of a standard table for recording EOs from the documents. These standardized tables were to be used for each SBA report and intended for cross-SBA integration of the EO needs. During the methodology development, it became evident that  additional attributes were required for the AQ EO needs and priorities. This report also benefited from the examination/evaluation of the completed GEO EO Priority Reports for Climate, Energy and Disasters SBAs.
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* International, regional, and national documents focused on data sources, applications, or research priorities
 
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* Project reports (e.g., findings from major regional/national projects)
 
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* Surveys (e.g., of users of solar resource data)
 
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* Workshop and conference summaries
 
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* Individual peer-reviewed journal articles.
 
  
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The Analyst used a twofold methodology for identifying potentially relevant documents: (1) literature and online searches, and (2) requests for Advisory Group members to suggest
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The documents identified in Section 2.3.1 were visually scanned by the Analyst team 3-5 times. The first scan focused on the general suitability of the document for consideration in this assessment as outlined above. During the second scan, detailed data extraction was performed and recorded into the document's metadata record. It yielded a list of AQ-Health-related EOs and other factual data regarding the observations (e.g. coverage, space and time resolution, accuracy, latency, geographic region, document type.. etc). The purpose of the third scan was to seek additional EO requirements that could only be inferred from the documents. The nature of the inference were also noted in the document's metadata record. Since the metadata extraction methodology evolved during the four month analysis period (June-September 2009), the document scans were performed iteratively.  
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documents. The online searches conducted by the Analyst focused on the websites of international, regional, and national organizations engaged in renewable energy. The literature
 
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searches relied on standard library search tools using a variety of renewable energy key words. This twofold approach was used to ensure that the set of documents ultimately analyzed would have broad geographic distribution and represent both developed and developing countries. The Analyst emphasized to Advisory Group members that any documents suggested for analysis need to be publicly available. This resulted in an initial set of potentially relevant documents.
 
  
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Upon further examination by the Analyst, each document had to include one of the following for consideration in the analysis: (1) specification of Earth observation parameters needed by users for renewable energy applications, or (2) reference to Earth observation parameters currently in use for renewable energy applications, with some indication of the adequacy of the parameter characteristics as currently available. While the Analyst focused initially on identifying the first type of document (identifying parameters needed by users), only a few of the identified documents fit neatly within this category. Thus, it was necessary to include the second type of document (focused on the adequacy of current observations) in order to have a broad enough set of documents from which priorities could be derived.
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A key aspect of the methodology development consisted of choosing the sub-areas of the AQ domain: Pollutant Emissions, Transport, Ambient levels, Human Exposure. The rationale for choosing this division is stated and described in section 3.2. For each sub-area the EO status and desired requirements were compiled separately. A further subdivision of the user requirements was made by geographic region of World. In the subsequent analysis the user requirements defined along these two dimensions were aggregated to yield the overall needs for Air Quality and Health. The resulting analyzes of the gathered metadata are shown later in Section 3.3.
  
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A certain degree of specificity was required for a document to be deemed relevant for analysis. That is, the document had to name the specific parameter(s) required or used, along with at least some indication of parameter characteristics (e.g., spatial resolution), in order to be included in the analysis. The parameter characteristics that were sought are as follows:
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==== 2.3.3 EO Prioritization fro AQ and Health ====
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* Coverage/Extent
 
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* Temporal resolution (frequency)
 
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* Spatial resolution (vertical and horizontal, as relevant)
 
−
* Timeliness (availability of measurement)
 
−
* Accuracy/Precision.
 
  
−
'''From Disasters:'''<br>
+
The parameters mentioned in each document were pulled together in a master spreadsheet to begin the prioritization process. For a given document, the title, ID given by analysts, region, document type and content type were entered. The parameters for each document were listed as columns and the doc ID number was used as a 'check mark' in the column's grid cell if a particular pollutant was present in the document. A count of each column provided a bibliometric analysis of the most frequently mentioned parameters. The list was then sorted twice, first by content type and then by region. Each region/content type was counted. For each content type, two tables were made with pollutants as the rows and geographic regions of the world as the columns for each content type. One table was for references for each region for each pollutant and the other table was the count that was mentioned for each pollutant for each region for each content type. This aided prioritization by identifying cross-cutting parameters and spatial gaps.
−
In order to identify as many publicly available documents as possible for consideration in the analysis of priority observations for the Disasters SBA, the Analyst and support team attempted to locate documents from various sources. The types of documents sought included international, regional, and national-level reports; workshop and conference proceedings,
 
−
summaries and presentations; peer-reviewed journal articles; and other published documents. The Disasters SBA team used the following key methods in the document identification process:
 
−
* Requested document references for the three disasters subtopics directly from the Advisory Group.
 
−
* Searched the websites of large national and international working groups and government agencies. Examples of such working groups and agencies include the IGOS Geohazards Community of Practice, the US Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR), the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), USGS, and Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM- France).
 
−
* Performed web-based literature searches using standard search tools and databases. The Analyst used combinations of specific disasters and Earth observation keywords (e.g., earthquake, observation, priorities, spatial resolution, etc.) to perform the searches.
 
−
* Referred to the references listed in the documents identified through other methods to provide potential new sources of information.
 
  
−
====Analytic Methods====
+
The main purpose of EOs for AQ and Health is to estimate the effects of air pollutants on human health and to help reduce these effects. The air pollution effects on human health are measured by the exposure of population to air pollutants in the ambient air. The exposure of a person is measured as the near-surface concentration of multiple air pollutants integrated over time. Exposure of an entire population is an integral of the individual exposures over space. Hence, the population exposure can be expressed as follows.  
−
This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to analyze documents and extract information to identify Earth observation parameters and characteristics.
 
  
−
For those documents identified in Section 2.3.1, the Analysts conducted a detailed data extraction process. The first round of extraction involved the documentation of region, doc type and parameters mentioned in the document. For each document a table was made to track the parameters and any mention of desired parameter characteristics such as: :
+
PopExposure = int_space int_time sum(C(i,s,t)*w(i))* P(s,t) ds dt = int_space int_time AQI ds dt =
−
* Coverage/Extent
+
<math>Insert formula here</math>
−
* Temporal resolution (frequency)
 
−
* Spatial resolution (vertical and horizontal, as relevant)
 
−
* Timeliness (availability of measurement)
 
−
* Accuracy/Precision.
 
  
−
For better comparison and recording all mentioned Earth observation parameter information was added to a spreadsheet organized by parameter and document. Each row in the spreadsheet represented a document, and each column represented a parameter (e.g., wind speed), facilitating a quick review of the total information gleaned, either by document or parameter.  
+
where ''C(i,s,t)'' stands for the surface concentration ''C'' of an air pollutant, ''i'', at location ''s'' and time ''t''. The factor ''w(i)'' is health-relevant weight factor for each pollutant.  The weighed sum over all pollutants is the chemical air quality index (AQI) to which an individual is exposed. The AQI = sum (C(i,s,t)*w(i)) is the air quality index (AQI) and depends on the chemical pollutant mix as well as space and time. AQI is obtained by direct measurement or alternate means for estimating individual pollutants concentrations (e.g. AQ model or surrogate measurements). The health-relevant pollutant weight factors arise from epidemiological health studies.  
  
 +
P(s,t) is the space and time-dependent population density and the product of AQI*P is the population exposure density for a specific location and time. The exposure of the entire population over time is obtained by integrating the population exposure density over space and time. 
  
−
'''Climate:''' <br>
+
The population exposure estimation for the entire global population is currently very uncertain. The overall uncertainty is contributed by the (1) lack of proper chemical measurement methods for the complex mixture of air pollutants; (2) by the poor and highly variable coverage represented by the spatial and temporal integrals and (3) uncertainty of the concentration dose-health response relationship.
−
Each document was evaluated for its usefulness in describing specific observation requirements. The extracted information was inventoried and compiled into a single master database listing all requirements and documenting all sources. The information was then organized into three Climate sub-areas (described below) for global and regional requirements for each sub-area.
 
  
−
'''Energy:''' <br>
+
Our method of EO prioritization for AQ and Health is based on the above causality-based model: Priority is given to EOs that reduce the uncertainty of population exposure estimation. The exposure uncertainty is separated into the (1) chemical measurements and (2) spatial and temporal coverage. In other words, the highest priority is assigned to EOs that provide the most direct indicator of health effects and also contribute most to the spatial and temporal coverage.  
−
For those documents that met the criteria described in Section 2.3.1, the Analyst first categorized the documents by renewable energy type(s) and region(s) represented (or global/international, if no specific geographic focus was noted). The results of this categorization are shown later in Section 3.3. The Analyst then conducted a detailed data extraction process. This entailed reading or skimming the document for mention of Earth observations, and recording all mentioned Earth observation parameter information in a spreadsheet organized by parameter and document. Each row in the spreadsheet represented a document, and each column represented a parameter (e.g., wind speed), facilitating a quick review of the total information gleaned, either by document or parameter. The Analyst recorded all relevant information provided in the document, including any mention of desired parameter characteristics
 
  
−
In cases where the information in the document referred to the adequacy of the characteristics of a current observation rather than the ideally required parameter characteristics, the parameter characteristics of the current observation were recorded for reference purposes. For example, if a document indicated that current spatial resolution of wind speed data is inadequate, the spatial resolution of the current observation referenced in the document, if specified, was recorded (such as on a 10km x 10km grid). While this information on adequacy of current observations does not provide an absolute target of ideally required parameter characteristics, this information was used to fill gaps where information was lacking on ideally required parameter characteristics. A distinction between the information derived from these two approaches is clearly made in the results section of this document.
+
The analytic method for this meta analysis includes multiple factors that are combined to yield a prioritized list of EOs. Combining these factors was accomplished by the use of weights attached to each factor and subsequently adding the weighed contributions to each EO priority. Hence, the outcome of the prioritization was derived from the selection of suitable factors and their respective weights. Selecting the factors that influence the EO needs is based on subjective judgment that is derived from the current understanding of the Air Quality-Health topic. For the derivation of the weight factors effort was made to apply as much as possible objective measures.
  
−
The next step was to construct a table of priority observations for each renewable energy subarea, as described in Section 3.2. To do this, the Analyst noted whether there were one or more documents for each sub-area that addressed ideally required user needs, as opposed to the adequacy of current observations. For solar and wind energy, such documents addressing ideally required user needs were available, and these “primary” documents were used as an initial basis to construct a priorities table for those sub-areas. The Analyst then compared the needs in these primary documents to parameters identified in other relevant documents, and added parameters to the table in cases that did not contradict the primary sources. Where there was a parameter that was indicated as important by three or more documents, but not the primary document, the Analyst included it in the table, but flagged such parameter as not derived from a primary user needs document.  
+
The analysts used three factors to prioritize the EO needs. The first was a bibliographic method to determine which pollutants were cited most. The second factor weighted the EOs for their potency (or how close they were to the actual cause of sickness) the EOs for coverage and the third factor weighed the EOs by their coverage.  
  
−
For the renewable energy sub-areas other than solar and wind energy, the Analyst and Advisory Group were not able to identify any clear-cut surveys or reports focused on end user needs.
+
For the bibliometric methods (OTA, 1986), priority was assigned based on the relative frequency with which an observation was cited by the documents. The pollutant potency factor was taken from health studies (epidemiological). The coverage factor for the EO priorities was based on the 'gap' between the current EO coverage and the desired EO coverage. The longer the gap, the higher is the coverage priority.
−
Thus, the Analyst pieced together the priority needs from the remaining relevant documents.
 
  
 +
==3. Air Quality and Health SBA ==
  
−
'''Disasters:''' <br>
+
The distinguishing characteristics of the AQH SBA are: (1) The pollutant classes of most health significance are known from many epidemiological studies but AQH is a relatively narrow subject area compared to other SBAs.
−
Each document was evaluated for its usefulness based on the inclusion of specific observation requirements related to earthquakes, landslides, and/or floods. As a result, in order for a
+
* Well defined needs for atmospheric compositions based on health effects
−
document to be included in the analysis, it had to explicitly identify required disasters-related Earth observations, and it had to contain information regarding the desired physical
+
* Large regional variation in the global coverage of EOs for AQH
−
characteristics of the observation. The physical characteristics include the temporal resolution (frequency), spatial resolution, timeliness (how quickly the observation is available),
 
−
accuracy/precision, and coverage or extent of the observation.
 
  
−
The Analyst performed a detailed data extraction process on the documents that met the criteria for inclusion in the analysis. All of the data extracted were compiled into a single database for further analysis. For each observation, the extracted information included the applicable disaster type(s) (earthquake/landslide/flood), the region of interest of the document (Global/Africa/Europe/Oceania/Asia and the Middle East/East Asia/North America/South and Central America), the type of document (e.g., international working group report, peer-reviewed journal article, conference proceedings, etc.) and the desired physical characteristics of the observation, where applicable.
+
These characteristics lead the Analyst team to organize this AQH EO assessment and prioritization document by global sub regions.  
  
−
In addition to extracting as much information from the reports into the database as possible, each observation parameter was grouped into a broader category of observations. The aggregation of certain parameters that are similar in nature in this way provides a more robust analysis, since individual observation requirements may not be frequently identified in the documents, but the effect could be larger if the observation were to be considered at the aggregated level. For example, precipitation duration, precipitation intensity, and precipitation amount were combined into a single “precipitation” category that was carried forward into the prioritization analysis. For each of the disaster types, the Analyst constructed a table of the observation priorities, as well as the aggregated observation category, that were identified in at least one of the document references. References to the documents that explicitly identify each observation as a priority are also included in the tables.
+
Additional sub-division EOs along the  
  
−
====Prioritization Methods====
+
* Causality chain: Emission, Transport, Ambient, Exposure
−
This section provides a general description of the process/methods/approaches the Analyst/AG used to prioritize the Earth observations, including the specific priority-setting criteria.
+
* End Uses: Informing Public, AQ Management, Science
 +
     
 +
     
  
−
'''Climate:'''<br>
+
----
−
The prioritization method involved two steps. The first step was documentation of an already-determined set of climate observation priorities,the essential climate variables (ECVs) identified by international teams of climate science and related experts convened under the auspices of the GCOS. The second step was review of documented requirements, both included among and in addition to the ECVs, to identify priorities of additional users. The analyst anticipated that the priorities of these users may overlap with the ECVs, but by taking account of their specific requirements, the needs of these users could provide a sense of relative priority, for these users, among the ECVs. As described further in Section 3.4, these users include regional and national governments.
+
Progress on improving air quality and decreasing acidic and toxic deposition (AQ) has been made in many parts of the world, particularly over North America and Europe, although problems persist or are getting worse in some less developed countries. The reductions in emissions that have brought about AQ improvements were motivated by scientific evidence of adverse impacts to health and welfare and have been accomplished through implementation of science-based policies and/or advances in technology nations.
  
−
In this second step, the method for assigning priority used well-known bibliometric methods (OTA, 1986). Priority was indicated by the relative frequency with which an observation was
+
Air pollution is caused primarily as the result of human activities and also mitigated by societal actions for reducing the levels of air pollution.  
−
cited by the documents as a required climate observation. For identifying global priorities, and using the master database of all required observations generated during the document review, a simple count was taken of the number of documents in which a particular Earth observation was described in the document as a required observation.
 
−
This value was divided by the total number of documents in which global requirements are discussed.
 
  
−
For the regional priorities, the count was taken of the number of regions for which an observation was described as a priority (for example, the number of regions for which extreme
+
In the industrial world, the overwhelming majority of air pollution is caused by the combustion of energy-producing fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas....  
−
precipitation observations is required). This value was divided by the total number of possible regions. Several of the documents describe requirements for multiple regions. Appendix C
+
hence the link to energy SBA,
−
identifies reports containing regional information.
 
  
−
'''Energy:'''<br>
+
Air pollutants also participate in the human-induced changes in the atmosphere  hence climate link (visibility, dimming, global warming).  
−
The Analyst developed a linear method of prioritization of the Earth observation parameters identified through the document meta-analysis described in Section 2.3.2 above. The Advisory
 
−
Group reviewed the method of prioritization. Only two Advisory Group members made minor comments on the method.3 The three consecutive steps of this prioritization are as follows:
 
−
* Cross-Cutting Parameters: The first step in identifying Earth observation priorities was for the Analyst to assess which observation parameters are required, with similar scales and characteristics, across several of the six sub-areas of renewable energy. The Analyst deemed that parameters that are required for multiple types of renewable energy would have an “economy of scale” that provides a multi-faceted return on investment. To ensure that these parameters are required with similar scales and characteristics, the Analyst checked the original literature and noted where required characteristics between renewable energy sub-areas varied significantly. However, in many cases, although the ideally required scales varied, meeting the finer scale requirement (e.g., hourly data) for one renewable energy sub-area would also allow averaging to meet a coarser scale requirement (e.g., monthly averages) for a different renewable energy sub-area.
 
−
* Key Parameters for Priority Renewable Energy Types: The second step was for the Analyst to identify the renewable energy types that are projected by experts to gain prominence over the next 20 plus years. For this, the Analyst relied on the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2008 (IEA, 2008b). The World Energy Outlook draws on a worldwide body of experts to identify required actions in the energy realm for a sustainable future. The Reference Scenario presented in the World Energy Outlook projects the energy mix out to 2030. The Analyst deemed that the top four renewable energy types by Terawatt-hours generated in the 2030 Reference Scenario should be considered “priority” types in this US-09-01a analysis. These were hydropower, onshore/land-based wind, bioenergy, and offshore wind.
 
−
* Advisory Group Refinement: The third step was oversight and review from the Task US-09-01a Energy SBA Advisory Group of the observation priorities identified by one or both of the first prioritization steps. This also served as a final check, should one of the above two methods fail to identify or properly categorize an observation. When combined with additional analysis by the Analyst, this allowed for ordering the parameters identified by the two methods above into a single tiered set of parameters.
 
  
 +
Air pollution also causes ecological effect (through acidification, ozone damage) ... link to ecosystems SBA
  
−
'''Disasters:''' <br>
+
In many areas of the world, the ambient pollutants originate from biomass burning (agricultural), forest, Savannah or agricultural fires or dust storms. ... links to disasters SBA.
−
Using the data from the observation database generated during the document review process, a weighted index was computed in order to generate a list of priority disasters observations that is as objective as possible given the information and resources available. The index value for each of the observation categories takes into account how frequently the observation category is mentioned in the documents as a priority, as well as document -specific weighting factors based on the cross-cutting applicability of the observation category and a report weight based on the type of document.
 
  
−
The cross-cutting applicability weight for each document is an integer value from 1 to 3 that is equal to the number of disaster types (earthquakes, landslides and/or floods) to which a single observation applies, as identified by the document. This weight did not rely on the Analyst’s judgment; rather it was assigned based only on the disaster types identified as applicable by the document.
+
----   
  
−
The document weight is also an integer value from 1 to 3. International working group or consensus documents carry the highest weight with a value of 3, since they typically represent
+
AQHI=10/10.4*(100*(EXP(0.000871*NO2)-1+ EXP(0.000537*O3)-1 + EXP(0.000487*PM2.5)-1))
−
the viewpoints of scientists from a broad range of geographic locations and technical specialties. National-level government or working group documents have a weight of 2. The national-level documents are weighted slightly lower due to the narrowed geographic focus of the documents. Journal articles, conference presentations, conference proceedings, and unpublished studies have a weight of 1, as they typically represent the viewpoint of one or a few scientists, have a narrow geographic focus, and are not always subject to the peer-review process. Table 2 summarizes the weighting factors and gives examples of each document category.
 
  
−
The document-specific index value for each observation category, do i , is calculated by taking the product of the weighting factor for the number of disaster types applicable for the observation category in the document, no w , and the weighting factor for the document type, d w , as seen in Equation 1.
+
=== 3.1 Air Quality and Health Description ===
 +
The Health SBA aims to understand and quantify the environmental factors affecting human health and well-being. According to the GEO 10-Year Plan Implementation Plan:
  
−
The final aggregated weighted index for each observation category, Io, is calculated for all documents by taking the sum of the document-specific index values for the observation category over all of the documents (Equation 2).
+
''Health issues with Earth observation needs include: airborne, marine, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persistent organic pollutants; nutrition; and monitoring weather-related disease vectors. GEOSS will improve the flow of appropriate environmental data and health statistics to the health community promoting a focus on prevention and contributing to the continued improvements in human health worldwide.''
  
−
By taking the sum of the index values over all of the documents, the aggregated index value takes into account how frequently the observation categories are identified as priorities. Those that are identified more frequently will have higher aggregated index values. The final aggregated index values are then used to rank the observation priorities across all three hazard types and all documents.
+
The Air Quality and Health is a sub-area of the Health SBA. It examines the role of outdoor air quality for human health and well-being.
 +
===3.2 Air Quality Sub-Areas ===
 +
Earth Observations for Health and Air Quality are not uniformly distributed. For this report, the Analysts classified priority EOs for different geographic regions using the physical breakdown shown in the table below. Earth Observations are needed at each stage from the emission of the pollutant to the population exposure.
 +
[http://pubs.healtheffects.org/view.php?id=153 HEI Accountability Chain]
  
−
== Air Quality and Health (~5 pages)==
+
===3.2 Earth Observations: Types and Quality ===
−
This section provides summary information of the XXX SBA and the specific sub-areas. This section also discusses the specific documents used in the meta-analysis (general discussion rather than specifics on each document) and the broad user-types within the SBA.
+
Earth observations for Air Quality and Health have many dimensions, or facets, and therefore require a range of attributes for a full characterization and description. The natural dimensions of EOs are captured by measured parameters as well as their spatial and temporal extent. Each physical dimension is also characterized by the resolution of the observation, i.e. spatial and temporal resolution, and the possible grouping/lumping/binning of the measured parameters. Other facets of EOs include relevancy to the application, data quality, tracability, timeliness, etc.
  
−
===Earth Observations: Types and Quality ===
+
For the most part, EOs cannot be used directly as raw data for decision making. Value adding processes (data filtering, aggregation and fusion) are needed to derive decision-ready products.  The complementary use of EOS with air quality models is particularly important given the model’s potential to characterize multiple pollutant species across variable spatial and temporal scales. The more difficult characterization of EOs is along the value chain from the raw observed data to the derived information and knowledge that is useful for decision making. A typical derived parameters is the air pollution index, an aggregate of multiple air pollutant concentrations, that informs the public on the general level of air pollution and facilitates personal decision making. Similarly, compliance with an AQ standard (derived from multi-year data series) informs an air quality manager whether an AQ control action is required.  
−
Earth observations have many facets and require a range of attributes for a full characterization and description for the AQ SBA. The natural dimensions of EOs are the the measured parameters as well as the spatial and temporal extent. Each physical dimension is also characterized by the resolution of the observation, i.e. spatial and temporal resolution, and the possible grouping/lumping of the measured parameters.
 
  
−
Hardly any of the EOs can be used directly as raw data for decision making. Value adding processes (data filtering, aggregation and fusion) are needed to derive decision-ready products.   The complementary use of EOS with air quality models is particularly important given the model’s potential to characterize multiple pollutant species across variable spatial and temporal scales. The more difficult characterization of EOs is along the value chain from the raw observed data to the derived information and knowledge that is used for decision making. Typical derived parameters include the air pollution index (an aggregate of multiple air pollutant concentrations), that informs the public on the general level of air pollution and facilitates personal decision making. Similarly, compliance with an AQ standard (derived from multi-year data series) informs an air quality manager whether an AQ control action is required. Other facets of EOs include relevancy to the application, data quality, tracability, timeliness, etc.
+
====3.2.1 Air Quality Parameters ====
 +
====3.2.2 Air Quality Observation Coverage - Global, Regional ====
 +
====3.2.3 Air Quality Process - Emission, Transport, Ambient, Health ====
 +
 
 +
=== 3.3 Documents - Popularity ===
 +
 
 +
[[Image:Observation Param_Histo.png|400px]]<br>
 +
'''Table 4. Documents measuring Earth Observations for Pollutants'''
 +
{| {{table}}
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Africa'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Non SE'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Southeast'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Europe'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Interntional'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''N. America'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''S. America'''
 +
|-
 +
| SO2||32,52,53,56,57,58,64,68,69||65,73,90,91||19,39,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,83,84,86,88,89,92||4,6,60,61,94||18||8,22,26,27,28,43,95||48,66
 +
|-
 +
| NO2||32,52,53,56,58,64,68||65,71,90||19,39,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,84,86,88||4,6,60,61,94||18||8,22,26,27,28,43,95||66
 +
|-
 +
| NOx||32,58,69||73,91||19,39,75,83,89,92||6,60,61,94||18||27||
 +
|-
 +
| CO||15,32,52,58,64,68,69||65,71,73,90,91||19,39,50,74,75,76,77,79,80,81,83,84,88,89,92||6,60,61,94||18||8,26,27,43,95||48,66
 +
|-
 +
| O3||15,32,52,58,64||71,73,90,91||19,39,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,83,84,89||6,60,61,94||13,18||8,12,22,26,27,28,43||48,66
 +
|-
 +
| VOC||15,32,52,58,69||73,91||||6,60,61,94||||||
 +
|-
 +
| PM10||32,52,56,64||71,73,90,91||19,50,51,75,76,77,78,79,80,89,93||4,6,60,61,94||13,17,18||8,22,26,27,44||48,66
 +
|-
 +
| PM2.5||56||73,91||80||4,6,60,61,94||14,17,18||8,12,26,27,28,44||
 +
|-
 +
| Lead||64||72||19,39,75,80,83||37,94||||26||
 +
|-
 +
| Aer. Carbon||68||||83||4||14||26||66
 +
|-
 +
| TSP||53,57||65||39,74,75,77,80,81,82,83,84,86,88,92,93||||||||66
 +
|-
 +
| AOD||||||||61||||26,44||
 +
|-
 +
| HNO3||||||||6||||27||
 +
|-
 +
| POPs||||||||6,62,94||||||
 +
|-
 +
| HCHO||||||||||||43||
 +
|-
 +
| AQI||||||||61||||||
 +
|-
 +
| Weather||||91||84||||||12||
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
==== 3.3.1 Documents by Process ====
 +
[[Image:AQ Obs_Histo.png|400px]]<br>
 +
'''Table 2. Documents with measured Earth Observations by Region for Categories'''
 +
{| {{table}}
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Africa'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Non SE'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Southeast'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Europe'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Interntional'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''N. America'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''S. America'''
 +
|-
 +
| Emission||23||||19||6||||43,44,95||
 +
|-
 +
| Transport||23||||||6||||43||
 +
|-
 +
| Ambient||15,23,52,64,67,68,69||65,71,72,73,90,91||19,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,86,88,89,92,93||6,60,61,62,94||13,14,18||8,22,26,28,27,43,44||48,66
 +
|-
 +
| Health||||||41,51||||13,14||8,22,28,||48
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
[[Image:AQ ObsNeeds_Histo.png|400px]]<br>
 +
'''Table 3. Documents with needs for Earth Observations by Region for Categories'''
 +
{| {{table}}
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Africa'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Non SE'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Asia Southeast'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Europe'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Interntional'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''N. America'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''S. America'''
 +
|-
 +
| Emission||||||20,86||9,62,94||10,11,17,18,34,45,59||7,26,36,38,40,95||
 +
|-
 +
| Transport||||||20,74,87,89||6,9,62||11,17,18,45,59||7,26,38,40,42,95||
 +
|-
 +
| Ambient||1,25,31,52,53,56,57,70||72,73||20,29,39,41,50,74,82,86,87,88,92,93||3,4,6,9,35,37,60,61,62,63||2,10,11,14,17,18,33,34,45,59||7,8,12,26,36,38,40,42||
 +
|-
 +
| Health||25||||20,29,41,84||3,4,9,35||2,10,11,14,33,34,59||7,8,12,26,36||
 +
|-
 +
| Weather||||||20||6,94||18,45,59||26,40||
 +
|-
 +
| Satellites||64||||19||6||11,17,18,45,46,59||26,27,38,40,42,43,44,95||
 +
|-
 +
| Models||15||||19,20,84,86,88||6,9,60,61,94||11,13,17,18,34,45,59||7,26,40,42,43,95||
 +
|}
  
−
=== Uses and users of EOs for Air Quality and Health ===  
+
==== 3.3.2 Documents by Region ====
−
Identifying the key users is a necessity for proper evaluation of their Earth Observation (EO) needs. In this report uses and user categories are represented in a two dimensional matrix. The first dimension is the end-use category.  An end user uses the EO for making a personal or societal decision. We will consider three groups of end-users of air quality-relevant observations: general public, air quality managers, and air quality policy makers. Each end use group has different EO needs. The respective information needs for each end user category will be determined.
 
  
−
The second dimension of EO user classification is along the value chain that transforms the raw observations into suitable information for the decision-makers (end users). Data managers and data flow mediators are a class of users who are responsible for the timely, robust and proper flow of EOs to the SBA application. These users, can be considered part ot the GEO information infrastrucuture.  Intermediate users include researchers, analysts, and modelers who digest and prepare the raw observations in a manner that is suitable for the end-user's decision making needs. The consumers of the processed EOs are the end-users listed above. Classifying users along the value adding chain would aid consistency with the GEOSS data sharing infrastructure, the right information is delivered to the right user. It is here recognized that public documents that explicitly address the information requirements for each user class in the 2D user matrix will be sparse.
+
{| {{table}}
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Regions'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''All References'''
 +
|-
 +
| Africa||1,15,23,25,31,32,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,64,67,68,69,70
 +
|-
 +
| Asia Non SE||65,71,72,73,90,91
 +
|-
 +
| Asia Southeast||19,20,29,39,41,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,86,87,88,89,92,93,97
 +
|-
 +
| Europe||3,4,6,9,35,37,60,61,62,63,94
 +
|-
 +
| Interntional||2,10,11,13,14,16,17,18,21,33,34,45,46,47,59,98,99,103,105,106,107
 +
|-
 +
| N. America||7,8,12,22,26,27,28,36,38,40,42,43,44,95,96,100,101,102,104
 +
|-
 +
| S. America||48,66,108
 +
|}
 +
[[Image:DocumentsbyRegionHisto.png|400px]]
 +
[[Image:NeedsObsComparisonbyRegion.png|400px]]
 +
=== 3.4 Users and uses of Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health ===
 +
* General public
 +
** Current and forecast air quality including
 +
** Alerts and recommended/mandatory actions during air pollution events
 +
** General causes and pattern of AQ in a neighborhood
  
−
*Emphasis on quality control… at all stages of the data flow.
+
* Air quality managers
 +
** Establishing health-based AQ standards through epidemiological studies that relate human health effects to ambient air quality. 
 +
** Monitoring for (a) compliance with health-based air quality standards through routine measurement of air quality in polluted and populated areas, (b) Long-term monitoring air quality and tracking of progress toward stated goals of rules, regulations and control strategies. 
 +
** Control actions ....
  
−
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 43]]
+
* Scientist
 +
** Research on atmospheric processes including emissions, transport, chemical transformation and removal processes on local, regional and global scales
 +
** Development and evaluation of chemical transport models that are used for forecasting, development of control strategies and national and intentional policies.
 +
** Determination of pollutant effects on human health (e.g. cancer, pulmonary, cardiovascular diseases) and welfare (e.g. acidification, effects on climate, visibility, damage to man-made materials)
  
−
[earthobservations.org/docs/10-Year%20Implementation%20Plan.pdf GEOSS 10 Year Implementation Plan]
 
  
−
* GEOSS will be a vital means of bringing useful environmental data to the health community in a user friendly form. Comprehensive data sets are powerful tools that support prevention, early warning, research, epidemiology, health care planning and delivery, and provide a variety of timely public alerts. For example, by linking weather, air quality data and the urban heat island effects, air quality forecasts can help protect asthmatics, the elderly and the young from cardiovascular and respiratory problems resulting from air pollution episodes. These data can also provide linkages to longer-term air quality impacts such as cancers, respiratory diseases, asthma and birth defects.
 
  
 +
# Reporting of air quality information to the public including timely alerts and forecasts as well as historical and regional pattern.
 +
# Observation-based verification of emissions for urban, industrial, agricultural sources as well as from natural sources (forest fires, windblown dust).
 +
# Determination of welfare effects, including terrestrial and aquatic acidification, effects on climate, visibility and damage to man-made materials. 
  
  
−
===Description (General information, includes brief GEO definition)===
+
Identifying the key users is a necessity for proper evaluation of their Earth Observation (EO) needs. In this report uses and user categories are represented in a two dimensional matrix. The first dimension is the end-use category.  An end user uses the EO for making a personal or societal decision. We consider three groups of end-users of air quality-relevant observations: general public, air quality managers, and air quality policy makers. Each end user group has different information needs. The respective information needs for each end user category will be determined.
  
−
'''Health: Understanding environmental factors affecting human health and well-being'''
+
The second dimension of EO user classification is along the value chain that transforms the raw observations into suitable information for the decision-makers (end users). Data managers and data flow mediators are a class of users who are responsible for the timely, robust and proper flow of EOs to the SBA application. These users, can be considered part ot the GEO information infrastructure.  Intermediate users include researchers, analysts, and modelers who digest and prepare the raw observations in a manner that is suitable for the end-users' decision making needs. The consumers of the processed EOs are the end-users listed above. Classifying users along the value adding chain would aid consistency with the GEOSS data sharing infrastructure, the right information is delivered to the right user. It is here recognized that public documents that explicitly address the information requirements for each user class in the 2D user matrix will be sparse.
  
−
''Health issues with Earth observation needs include: airborne, marine, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persistent organic pollutants; nutrition; and monitoring weather-related disease vectors. GEOSS will improve the flow of appropriate environmental data and health statistics to the health
+
*Emphasis on quality control… at all stages of the data flow.
−
community promoting a focus on prevention and contributing to the continued improvements in human health worldwide.''
 
  
 +
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 43]]
  
−
The following is the brief statement of topics covered and key outcomes in the Health SBA from the [[GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan]]: Health issues with Earth-observation needs include: airborne, marine, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persistent organic pollutants; nutrition; and monitoring weather-related disease vectors. GEOSS will improve the flow of appropriate environmental
+
[earthobservations.org/docs/10-Year%20Implementation%20Plan.pdf GEOSS 10 Year Implementation Plan]
  
  
−
Section 3.1 should briefly state the broad set of sub-areas within the SBA.  For example, the Disasters report stated the broad categories of disasters (weather-related, geologic, and human-induced) and specific disaster types (earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, avalanches, etc.).  Section 3.2 articulates the specific sub-areas the report addresses.
 
  
 +
* GEOSS will be a vital means of bringing useful environmental data to the health community in a user friendly form. Comprehensive data sets are powerful tools that support prevention, early warning, research, epidemiology, health care planning and delivery, and provide a variety of timely public alerts. For example, by linking weather, air quality data and the urban heat island effects, air quality forecasts can help protect asthmatics, the elderly and the young from cardiovascular and respiratory problems resulting from air pollution episodes. These data can also provide linkages to longer-term air quality impacts such as cancers, respiratory diseases, asthma and birth defects.
  
 +
== 4. Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health==
 +
=== 4.1 Observations by Pollutant ===
 +
=== 4.2 Observation by Coverage===
 +
[[Image:StationsByregion.png|400px]]
 +
[[Image:FractionOfStationsParam Arica.png|400px]]
 +
[[Image:FractionOfStationsParam Asia.png]]
 +
[[Image:FractionOfStationsParam NAmerica.png|400px]]
 +
[[Image:NumberOfStationsByParameter.png|400px]]
  
−
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 43]]
+
=== 4.3 Observations that are needed for Air Quality Processes ===
−
* Currently, the work being conducted with remote sensing technologies and disease is through interdisciplinary research groups involving scientists with varied backgrounds such as remote sensing, epidemiologists, and atmospheric scientists (e.g. the international ESSP). The science of epidemiology involves observing factors that might be associated with disease, and then calculating the degree of significance in the association. The true value of Earth Observation data will become more fully realized when simple, user-friendly data products are prepared that are easily overlaid onto disease/dysfunction maps. For example, if an epidemiologist wishes to investigate factors associated with childhood asthma, it will be useful to model the physical location of patients with real-time and cumulative local airborne particulates over the study period. GEOSS can make a significant contribution to this class of activity by ensuring data are available and developing the modelling capability.
 
  
−
===Sub-areas  (statement and brief description/rationale)===
+
== 5. Priority Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health ==
−
This section states the specific sub-areas that the report addresses.  This section should briefly describe each sub-area.  This section should provide the reason or rationale why the Analyst/Advisory Group selected these sub-areas.
+
=== 5.1 General Description ===
−
===Documents ===
+
=== 5.2 Priority Observations ===
−
''a general statement about the set of documents; a table of the documents with region, sub-area, organizational author, GEO Member or Participating Org.''
 
  
−
This section states the specific documents that the Analyst/AG reviewed in the analysis.  The section can include specific information about the identification and selection of a representative sampling.  This section might include a table to summarize the number of documents by SBA sub-area, geographic region, authorship (by GEO member or participating organization).  Note: Please use the template table, with additions as needed, which Lawrence included in an email.
 
  
−
This section should also address any attempts or actions taken to close any apparent gaps in types of documents.
+
This section provides summary information of the Health and Air Quality, highlights specific features of the meta-analysis and the broad uses and user-types of Earth Observations in AQ.
  
  
−
===User Types ===
+
[[Image:DocsByObsParameter.png|400px]]
−
''statement and table on the general types of users in the SBA sub-areas; this section also needs to articulate how this User Types contributed to the analysis, such as its use to review & improve the set of documents''
+
[[Image:DocsByParameter NonNAmerica.png|400px]]
 +
[[Image:DocsByParameter NAmerica.png|400px]]
  
−
This section discusses the broad user types within the SBA.  The specific user types can be listed or in a table.  This section needs to describe how the user types were employed by the Analyst/AG, such as to perform a gap analysis of the documents to determine any potential biases.
 
  
−
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 42]]
 
−
* Health service providers, researchers, policy makers, and the public in developed and developing countries as well as indigenous communities need such data products for providing the services,science, and decisions that affect human health and well-being.
 
  
−
==Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health (length is dependent; maybe 3-4 pages/sub-area)==
 
−
This section contains the results from the analysis of the documents and the specific observation parameters/characteristics that the analysis revealed for each sub-area.
 
  
 +
=== EO Regional Requirements ===
  
−
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 43]]
+
==Priority Observations ==
−
* It will be achieved through the development of a system of in situ, airborne, and space-based systems integrated through assimilation and modelling tools with census data on health, and
 
−
* GEOSS will be invaluable in allowing exposure and disease data to be related among populations. For example, the aerial particle pollution and health consequences among the World’s major cities could be compared and contrasted, and degenerating environmental conditions that could lead to the emergence of infectious diseases could be identified and reversed before a new epidemic occurs.
 
−
* It is essential to be able to relate the results of disease studies conducted in different times and locations. Historical data from satellites on the effects of land use and land cover changes are needed to track, model and predict changes in ozone, particulate matter, chemical emissions, disease vectors, cancers, and birth defects to evaluate improvements in health conditions related to public well-being.
 
−
[[GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document|GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 201]]
 
−
* Health issues with Earth-observation needs include: airborne, marine, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persistent organic pollutants; nutrition; and monitoring weather-related disease vectors. GEOSS will improve the flow of appropriate environmental data and health statistics to the health community, promoting a focus on prevention and contributing to continued improvements in human health worldwide.
 
  
−
===Sub-areas (one section per sub-area)===
 
−
''These sections should state what observations and characteristics came out of the meta-analysis of the documents, including a brief rationale based on the documents.  These sections need to reflect the methodology from 2.3.2.  Essentially, the section for each sub-area needs to articulate which observations “made the cut” and why.''
 
  
−
For each sub-area, this section should identify the observations mentioned in the documents and state the specific observations that are common and representative of the sub-area.  This section should reference the documents in establishing the set of observations.  Since the results should be based on the methodology described in section 2.3.2, this section should blend those methodologies into the discussion in this section.  A table listing all the observations and representative characteristics in this sub-area would be beneficial – please use the template table that Lawrence provided in an email.
+
* Pollutant Potency
 +
* Pollutant Concentration, Dose
 +
* Observation Coverage, Quality
 +
* Observation Category
  
−
==Priority Observations (4-5 pages)==
 
 
This section contains the results from the prioritization method(s) applied to the observations identified in section 4.   
 
This section contains the results from the prioritization method(s) applied to the observations identified in section 4.   
−
===General description ===
+
 
−
The section contains and describes specific information about the prioritization of the Earth observations from section 4.  This section should contain specific information about the application of the prioritization method(s) described in section 2.3.3. 
 
−
===Priority observations.===
 
−
''List(s) or table(s) of priority observations and characteristics
 
−
This section needs to reflect the methodology from 2.3.3.  This section can also include text to describe the table(s) and its contents''
 
−
This section contains the specific priority Earth observations for the XXX SBA.  A table listing all the observations and representative characteristics is preferred – please use the template table that Lawrence provided in an email.
 
  
 
{| {{table}}
 
{| {{table}}
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''GEO Task US-09-01a:  Priority Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health'''
+
| rowspan="2" align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Observation Category'''
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
+
| rowspan="2" align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Parameter'''
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
+
| colspan="6" align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Aggregated Characteristics of Priority Observation Parameters'''
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
+
|-
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
+
|Coverage/Extent||Spatial||Temporal||Accuracy||Latency||Other
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 
−
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|''''''
 
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Observation Category||Parameter||Coverage/Extent||Spatial||Temporal||Accuracy||Latency||Other
+
| Air Pollution||PM2.5||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||PM10/TSP||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||SO2||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||O3||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||NO2/NO||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||CO||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||VOCs||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||Metals||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||Black Carbon||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||Airtoxics||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||NH3||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||POPs||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| Other||Weather||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||Surface Character||||||||||||
 
|-
 
|-
−
| ||||||||||||||
+
| ||Demographic||||||||||||
 
|}
 
|}
  
−
==Additional Findings (1-3 pages)==
 
−
''This section is for other finding and results of the meta-analysis that do not fit in the sections above.  Create sub-sections as needed.''
 
  
−
==Analyst Comments and Recommendations (2-3 pages)==
+
[[Image:StationsByPersonRegion.png|400px]]
−
This section is for the Analysts to provide their perspectives on the SBA, documents, set of observation priorities, etc. This section can be a bit more subjective than the other sections.  This section might include perspectives on the US-09-01a process and suggestions for improvement.
+
 
 +
===Summary of Results ===
 +
The bibliographic weighting is shown in the figure below for all of the documents analyzed.
 +
 
 +
[[Image:FreqofAirPollParam.png|400px]]
 +
===Priority observations.===
 +
This section contains the specific priority Earth observations for the Air Quality and Health.  
 +
==== Global ====
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Additional Findings ==
 +
 
 +
 
 +
==Analyst Comments and Recommendations==
  
 
===Process & Methodology===
 
===Process & Methodology===
−
This section contains the Analyst’s perspectives on the overall US-09-01a process as well as perspectives on the analytic methods used.  The section can certainly provide suggestions on how to do the process and analysis better in the future.
+
 
 
===Challenges  (e.g., Advisory Group, Documents, Observations & Meta-analysis)===
 
===Challenges  (e.g., Advisory Group, Documents, Observations & Meta-analysis)===
−
This section contains the Analyst’s perspectives on key challenges faced in this activity, actions taken to address the challenges, and suggestions how to address, prevent, or overcome the challenges in the future. 
 
−
===Recommendations===
 
−
This section contains the Analyst’s recommendations to UIC how to improve the US-09-01a activity.
 
−
 
−
===Title of Additional Sub-sections (as needed)===
 
−
This section (and any others) contains other topics that the Analyst wants to address. 
 
−
 
−
Note: In case the Analyst wants to convey some comments in a non-written format and/or outside of this formal report, the Analyst will have an opportunity to provide comments vocally.
 
  
 
==Appendix==
 
==Appendix==
 
===Acronyms===
 
===Acronyms===
−
 
+
{| {{table}}
−
GEO Group on Earth Observation
+
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Abbreviation'''
−
GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of Systems
+
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Full Name'''
−
SBA Societal Benefit Area
+
|-
−
UIC User Interface Committee
+
| AG||Advisory Group
−
 
+
|-
 +
| AIP||GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot
 +
|-
 +
| AOD||Aerosol Optical Depth
 +
|-
 +
| AQ||Air Quality
 +
|-
 +
| AQ CoP||Air Quality Community of Practice
 +
|-
 +
| AQH ||Air Quality and Health
 +
|-
 +
| AQI ||Air Quality Index
 +
|-
 +
| CAPITA||Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis
 +
|-
 +
| CASAC||Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
 +
|-
 +
| CDC||Center for Disease Control
 +
|-
 +
| CO ||Carbon Monoxide
 +
|-
 +
| EO ||Earth Observation
 +
|-
 +
| EPA||Environmental Protection Agency
 +
|-
 +
| ERG||Eastern Research Group
 +
|-
 +
| ESA||European Space Agency
 +
|-
 +
| ESIP ||Earth Science Information Partners
 +
|-
 +
| GCI||GEOSS Common Infrastructure
 +
|-
 +
| GEO||Group on Earth Observation
 +
|-
 +
| GEOSS||Global Earth Observation System of Systems
 +
|-
 +
| HCHO||Formaldehyde
 +
|-
 +
| HEI||Health Effects Institute
 +
|-
 +
| IGAC||International Global Atmospheric Chemistry
 +
|-
 +
| NAS||National Academy of Science
 +
|-
 +
| NASA||National Aeronautics and Space Administration
 +
|-
 +
| NH3||Ammonia
 +
|-
 +
| NO2||Nitrogen Dioxide
 +
|-
 +
| NOx||Nitrogen Oxides
 +
|-
 +
| O3||Ozone
 +
|-
 +
| PM||Particulate Matter
 +
|-
 +
| PM 10||PM less than  10 um in diameter
 +
|-
 +
| PM 2.5||PM less than  2.5 um in diameter
 +
|-
 +
| POPs||Persistant Organic Pollutants
 +
|-
 +
| SBA||Societal Benefit Area
 +
|-
 +
| SO2||Sulfur Dioxide
 +
|-
 +
| TSP ||Total Suspended Particulates, PM of any size
 +
|-
 +
| UIC||User Interface Committee
 +
|-
 +
| VOC||Volatile Organic Compounds
 +
|-
 +
| WHO||World Health Institute
 +
|-
 +
| WMO||World Meteorological Institute
 +
|}
 
===Bibliography  (can be split into the two if desired – not required to do so)===
 
===Bibliography  (can be split into the two if desired – not required to do so)===
 
This section can list the documents and references in one list.  Or, if preferred, this section can split the documents and references according to those “cited” and those “consulted.”
 
This section can list the documents and references in one list.  Or, if preferred, this section can split the documents and references according to those “cited” and those “consulted.”
Line 385: Line 534:
 
List of the documents cited in the analysis.
 
List of the documents cited in the analysis.
 
====References Consulted ====
 
====References Consulted ====
−
List of the documents consulted in the broader analysis.
+
{{#ask: [[Category: GEO UserReq Doc]][[Category:CandidateDoc]]
 +
| ?Organization
 +
| ?Year
 +
| ?DocRegion=Document Region
 +
| ?DocType=Type
 +
| ?DocURL
 +
| limit=5
 +
}}
  
 
===Other appendices as needed===
 
===Other appendices as needed===
 
[[AQ GEO Task 0901a Report Outline v.1]]
 
[[AQ GEO Task 0901a Report Outline v.1]]
  
−
===c===
+
== Extra Material For Report==
−
A significant task of the AG is to assess, evaluate and comment on the proposed scope of the AQ SBA EO requirements. The initial scope proposed by the Analyst group is given below.
+
 
 +
 
 +
 +
 
 +
AQ Burden x Dose Responsex Population density
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
 
 +
However, the ambient concentration of air pollutants is highly variable in space and time and is documented the least. Hence, the main uncertainty of health effects is the inadequate pollutant  information on the global scale of air pollution, particularly over urban-industrial areas where people reside.
 +
 
 +
The second source of uncertainty arises from not knowing what the harming pollutant concentration is. This uncertainty is contributed from the lack of EOs at the desired space and time. For instance large fractions of Africa, Asia and S. America have no AQ monitors and hence the concentrations are not known.
 +
 
 +
--------C O V E R A G E ---------
 +
 
 +
 +
 
 +
Satellite Needs for AQ also coverage: The current observation system for AQ is woefully inadequate to monitor population exposure and develop effective emission control strategies. Surface air measurement networks have insufficient coverage, and are generally lacking in the developing world. (Edwards, et Al., 2006)
  
−
The composition of the atmosphere plays a significant role in at least three societal benefit areas defined by GEO:  Climate, Disasters and Human Health.  In Climate, atmospheric composition influences the energy budget of the Earth System, most notably through greenhouse gases and aerosols. The atmospheric observations, as they pertain to Climate, do influence air quality; however, they will be beyond the scope of this report as they are more directly addressed elsewhere. Among the Disasters, wild-land fires, dust storms, volcanic eruptions and severe pollution events have significant effect on atmospheric composition and through that on human health and well being. These causes will be considered within the scope of this EO needs assessment. The Human Health SBA will be the primary application of this EO needs assessment.
+
ask how current ambient particulate matter concentration in SSA cities compare with these values.Unfortunately,
  
−
While the application is the protection of Human Health, the focus of this meta-analysis will be on the Earth Observations that are relevant to human health. Morbidity, mortality, and other human health observations will not be assessed. The EOs of particular interest will include the concentration of and population exposure to pollutants near the Earth surface, where people live. The spatial domain of primary interest will be the continents with emphasis on regions with highest population density. The vertical distribution will be considered as it relates to pollutant emission sources and transport.  The temporal domain may extend over decades for the epidemiological studies, to short-term, hour-scale impacts of natural or anthropogenic pollution events. Geographic areas with high population densities will also be of high priority.  Air pollutants over remote locations over land or ocean will be considered as they pertain to the identification of air pollutant sources and their transport.
+
very little monitoring data exist upon which to base even
  
−
The types of Earth observations will include ground-based in-situ monitoring of gases and aerosol particles, passive remote sensing (satellites), active remote sensing (lidar) and conceivably some aircraft sampling. Air quality models on local, regional and global scales will be considered as they contribute to the understanding and forecasting of air pollution that impact on human health. The focus on specific air pollutants will differ regionally: ozone and fine aerosols for the industrial countries and additional focus on biomass and waste-burn (urban and agriculture) smoke, traffic emissions and windblown dust in the developing countries  (in addition to motor vehicle, industrial, and waste-combustion emissions [redundant?]). The above is not a prioritization per se, but guidance for the prioritization process.
+
preliminary answer (Vliet and Kinney, 2007)  
−
Note to AG:  Feedback on this Scope from the AG will be particularly helpful, since it will guide both the selection of the relevant publicly available documents, as well as the subsequent prioritization of the required Earth observations. The suggestions regarding how to narrow the Scope wil be particularly welcome.
 
  
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J. Fishman: One important website is the IGOS/IGACO report for the integrated observing of trace gases and aerosols: http://www.igospartners.org/Atmosphere.htm
 
−
J. Meagher: I'm not sure I understand how you intend model products to factor into an analysis of earth observations.
 
−
In my opinion there has been a disturbing trend to talk about model output as "data", or as a substitute for real observations.
 
−
If the intent is to use models as a way to determine the adequacy of the current or proposed observational networks, I think that is appropriate.
 
−
If the intent is to use models as another source of "observations" I think that is totally inappropriate.
 
−
This section needs to be more clearly written so the use of models, in this context, can be clearly understood.
 
  
 +
transportation emissions are high (Vliet and Kinney, 2007). It is reasonable to ask how current ambient particulate matter concentrations in SSA cities compare with these values.Unfortunately, very little monitoring data exist upon which to base even a preliminary answer. A recent analysis of the global environmental burden of disease due to ambient PM uncovered useful air monitoring data from only three sites in all of SSA
 +
 +
(Cohen et al 2004).
 +
 +
Ozone troposphere (Fishman, 2008)
 +
Use for spatial/temporal resolution needs (EC/ESA, 2006)
 +
 +
(111) Cohen 2004 -
 +
 +
 +
Future estimates of the global burden of disease due to outdoor air pollution
 +
would benefit from both additional research and methods development.
 +
 +
There is a critical need for better information on the health effects of air pollution in
 +
developing counties.
 +
 +
Exposure research should aim to provide better estimates not only of ambient concentrations but also the characteristics of outdoor air pollution, including the contribution of various sources and the size distribution of PM.
 +
 +
Estimates of uncertainty distributions should more fully incorporate model uncertainties, such as those related to the choice of concentration-response function (National Research Council, 2002).
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
 +
Emphasis on quality control… at all stages of the data flow.
  
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I don't quite know how to do it, but there needs to be more emphasis on observations whose quality are clearly quantified.  You mentioned data quality as an important parameter earlier in the report.  Is there some way we can be sure that more emphasis is placed on defining data quality (accuracy, precision, specificity, etc.)? Obviously this is a pet peeve.  There are lots of data out there which are of very poor quality, including some of the US networks.  The presence of these data actually, in my opinion, cause more ham than good.
+
Multi-pollutant monitoring (Brooks, 2008; Cohen, 2004)
−
=== d===
 
  
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The documents selected for this meta-analysis will include multiple sources, such as publicly available consensus reports and open publications by authoritative contributors including academic and other public research contributions (library-stored thesis or any other grey literature, especially in developing countries). The document identification will be performed by the Analyst Group, the Advisory Group as well as other experts. The Analyst Group will focus on the identification of consensus documents prepared by major national and international organizations, including the World Health Orgnization (WHO), US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), and  Air Pollution Information Network Africa (APINA).  The selection of journal and other publications will be focused on multi-author review articles relevant to EO needs. An expanding list of publications under consideration is given in the project website and a subset in the GEO Task Website. 
 
  
−
The AG is requested to point out documents referring to EO needs for Air Quality. Of particular interest would be documents that discuss the EO needs in developing countries where the health impact may be dominated by non-industrial sources and the relevant observations are particularly scarce.
 
 
   
 
   
−
The identification of documents, the extraction of the relevant Earth observations and their prioritization is a highly subjective activity.  Also, there are currently no generally accepted methods for conducting this process.  For this reason, the leads for GEO Task US-09-01a have strongly encouraged the Analysts and the AGs to be inventive and resourceful in performing this delicate process. 
 
  
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Similar document analyzes and earth observation priority setting already conducted in other SBAs provide methods that will be considered in defining the method for AQ SBA, including:
+
future scenario for ozone(Fowler, 2008)
  
−
J. Meagher: I didn't see any discussion of analytical methods or prioritization criteria so I assume that is something the group will work on.
+
In same context, lead is phasing out (CERN, 2009)
  
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This step of identifying, reading and analyzing the reports, documents and recommendations is in progress. Records of the activities are kept on the open project wiki website.
 
  
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http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/GEO_User_Requirements_for_Air_Quality
+
**** Earth observations for Air Quality and Health have many dimensions or facets, thus require a range of attributes for a full characterization and description. The natural dimensions of EOs are the measured parameters as well as the spatial and temporal extent. Each physical dimension is also characterized by the resolution of the observation, i.e. spatial and temporal resolution, and the possible grouping/lumping of the measured parameters. Other facets of EOs include relevancy to the application, data quality, traceability, timeliness, etc.**** 
  
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Interested members of the AG and others may examine the current state of the project including the project plan, chronological list of project events, interactions with the Analyst of other SBAs in this GEO task etc
+
                           
  
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Additional Comments from Kjetil – No comments.
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[[AQ GEO Task - Unused Texts]]
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In the report need to include sections on each of the EO table columns, e.g. timeliness/latency
 

Latest revision as of 16:05, February 26, 2013

< GEO User Requirements for Air Quality | Report | Documents | Resources
*** Report is now being modified in V4 Report Word Doc ***

1. Introduction

This report articulates Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA based on an analysis of 60 publicly-available documents, including documents produced by Group on Earth Observations (GEO) member countries and participating organizations.

1.1 GEO and Societal Benefit Areas

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO, www.earthobservations.org) is an intergovernmental organization working to improve the availability, access, and use of Earth observations to benefit society. GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GEOSS builds on national, regional, and international observation systems to provide coordinated Earth observations from thousands of ground, airborne, and space-based instruments. GEO is focused on enhancing the development and use of Earth observations in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBA): Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate, Disasters, Ecosystems, Energy, Human Health, Water, Weather

1.2 GEO Task US-09-01a

The objective of GEO Task US-09-01a is to establish and conduct a process to identify critical Earth observation priorities within each Societal Benefit Area (SBA) and those common to the nine SBAs. Many countries and organizations have written reports, held workshops, sponsored projects, conducted surveys, and produced documents that specify Earth observation needs. In addition, researchers and practitioners have also identified and recommended key Earth observation needs in publications and peer-reviewed literature. Task US-09-01a focuses on compiling information on observation parameters from a representative sampling of these existing materials and conducting analyses across the materials to determine priority observations.

  • 10-year implementation plan note.

1.3 Purpose of Report

The primary purpose of this report is to articulate the critical Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA, specifically Air Quality as it affects health and well-being. The Human Health SBA EO priorities are addressed by two additional reports within GEO Task US-0901a: Infections Diseases and Aeroallergens . The intent of the report is to describe the overall process and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, and to determine a set of Earth observation parameters and characteristics. The report describes the prioritization methodologies used to determine the priority Earth observations for this SBA. The report also provides information on key challenges faced, feedback on the process, and recommendations for process improvements.

The primary audience for this report is the GEO User Interface Committee (UIC), which is managing Task US-09-01a for GEO. The GEO UIC will use the results of this report in combination with reports from the other eight SBAs. The GEO UIC will perform a meta-analysis across all nine SBA reports to identify critical Earth observation priorities common to many of the SBAs. Based on the nine SBA reports, the GEO UIC will produce an overall Task US-09-01a report, including the common observations and recommendations for GEO processes to determine Earth observation priorities in the future. The report’s authors anticipate that the GEO Secretariat, Committees, Member Countries, Participating Organizations, Observers, Communities of Practice, and the broader communities associated with the Human Health and other SBAs are additional audiences for this report.

1.4 Scope of Report

This report addresses the Earth observation priorities for the Human Health SBA. In particular, this report addresses the sub-area of Air Quality within the Human Health SBA (see Section 3 for more details). The report provides some background and contextual information about Air Quality and Health. However, this report is not intended as a handbook or primer on Air Quality and Health, and a complete description of the Human Health SBA is beyond the scope of this report. Please consult the GEO website (http://www.earthobservations.org) for more information about the Human Health SBA.

The report focuses on the Earth observations for Air Quality and Health, independent of any specific technology or collection method. Thus, the report addresses the “demand” side of observation needs and priorities. It does not address the specific source of the observations or the sensor technology involved with producing the observations. Similarly, any discussions of visualization tools, decision support tools, or system processing characteristics (e.g., data format, data outlet) associated with the direct use of the observations are beyond the scope of this report.

The term Earth observation (EO) refers to parameters and variables (e.g., physical, geophysical, chemical, biological) sensed or measured, derived parameters and products, and related parameters from model outputs. The term Earth observation priorities refers to the parameters deemed of higher significance than others for the given SBA, as determined through the methodologies described within. The report uses the terms “user needs” and “user requirements” interchangeably to refer to Earth observations that are articulated and desired by the groups and users in the cited documents. The term “requirements” is used generally in the report to reflect users’ wants and needs and does not imply technical, engineering specifications.

Following this introduction, the report discusses the overall approach and methodologies used in this analysis (Section 2). Section 3 describes the Human Health SBA and the specific sub-areas. Section 4 articulates the specific Earth observations on Air Quality for Human Health and well-being. Section 5 presents the priority observations for Air Quality and Health. Sections 6 and 7 present additional findings from the analysis of the documents and any recommendations. The Appendices include the documents cited as well as additional information describing aspects of Air Quality and Human Health and Welfare.

2. Methodology and Process

This section documents the general process followed and describes the specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, determine Earth observation parameters and characteristics, and establish a set of priority Earth observations for this SBA. It (1) outlines the general task process approach, (2) identifies the analyst and the advisory group and (3) describes the methodologies used for this meta analysis, which consist of (a) document selection, (b) an approach for defining and extracting AQ EO needs and (c) analytical methods for prioritizing Earth Observations for AQ.

2.1 Task Process

The GEO UIC established a general, but uniform, process that is to be applied by each of the SBAs. The intent is to ensure a level of consistency across the SBAs. This general process for each SBA involves nine steps, as summarized in the following list:

  • Step 1: Identify Analyst and Advisory Group for the SBA
  • Step 2: Determine scope of topics within the SBA
  • Step 3: Identify documents regarding observation priorities for the SBA
  • Step 4: Develop analytic methods and priority-setting criteria
  • Step 5: Review and analyze documents for priority Earth observations needs
  • Step 6: Combine the information and develop a preliminary report
  • Step 7: Gather feedback on the preliminary report
  • Step 8: Perform any additional analysis
  • Step 9: Complete the report on Earth observations for the SBA

A detailed description of the general US-09-01a process is available at the Task website, http://sbageotask.larc.nasa.gov, or the GEO website. Some steps in the process occurred simultaneously or iteratively, such as identifying documents (Step 3) and reviewing documents (Step 5).

2.1 Analyst and Advisory Group

The Health and Air Quality group included an “Analyst” and an “Advisory Group” to conduct the process of identifying documents, analyzing them, and prioritizing the Earth observations. The Analyst served as the main coordinator to manage the activities.

2.2.1 Analysts

The Analysts for this Air Quality and Health EO Requirement Report were Drs. Rudolf Husar (lead analyst) and Stefan Falke (co-analyst). Rudolf Husar is a Professor of Energy. Environmental and Chemical Engineering and director of Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA) at Washingon University in St. Louis, MO. Over the past 35 years Husar conducted parallel research in air pollution (sources, transport, transformations, effects) and in environmental informatics i.e. the application of science, engineering and technology to environmental information processing. Husar has served on committees of NAS, EPA CASAC as well as international advisory groups, including WMO, IGAC. Recently Husar's research group has actively participated in various aspects of the evolving GEOSS, including the GEOSS Common infrastructure (GCI), the Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP), and the GEOSS Air Quality Community of Practice (CoP). Stefan Falke is a Research Assistant Professor of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and Manager of Geospatial Information Services for Energy and Environment at Northrop Grumman. Stefan serves as co-chair, with Rudolf Husar, of the Earth Science Information Partners Federation (ESIP) Air Quality Workgroup, which fosters interaction among satellite, aerial, surface, and modeled data producers, brokers, and consumers, and that is setting the foundation for an international GEOSS Air Quality Community of Practice. He has also recently been appointed to lead the Atmospheric Science Interest Group within the Working Group on Information Systems & Services (WGISS) in the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) with an initial focus on interoperability in access, tools, and contextual guidance for using remotely sensed atmospheric composition information across multiple countries.

The Analysts prepared this report through funding from EPA, though a subcontract to ERG, Jan Connery, Project Officer.

2.2.2 Advisory Group

The first step in the nine-step GEO Task US-09-01a process is the formation of an expert Advisory Group (AG) that helps identify appropriate documents, provides feedback on the analysis approach and also reviews the preliminary and final reports. For the Air Quality and Health SBA, 18 potential AG members were identified. The sources of AG candidate names came from the UIC, major Agency representatives and the Analyst team. Additional AG candidates were suggested by the AG members themselves. Eleven of the invited candidates responded favorably, two invitations were declined, three candidates did not respond and two candidates are still pending. Effort was made to include representatives from developing nations and to achieve a representation across geographic domains. Additional AG members would be desirable, particularly from developing countries.

The current Advisory Group consists of 11 experts from the field of Health and Air Quality or some subset thereof. Table 1 shows the Advisory Group members, including: Name, GEO Member Country or Participating Organization, Organizational Affiliation, Geographic Region, Specialty/Area of Expertise. Overall, the Advisory Group includes members from 7 countries and 5 continents, including 3 from developing countries. Five AG members have parallel expertise in air quality as well as human health.

Table 1. List of Advisory Group Members*

Name GEO Country or Organization Affiliation Region Specialty
Jeff Brooks Canada Env. Canada N. America Air Quality
Jack Fishman US NASA Langley N. America Air Quality
Barry Jessiman Canada Health Canada N. America AQ and Health
Patrick Kinney US Columbia University N. America AQ and Health
Jim Meagher US NOAA N. America Air Quality
Rashmi S. Patil India IIT Bombay Asia AQ and Health
Leonora Rojas Mexico National Institute of Ecology N. America AQ and Health
Paulo Saldiva Brazil University of São Paulo S. America AQ and Health
Rich Scheffe US EPA OAR/OAQPS N. America Air Quality
Kjetil Tørseth Norway Norwegian Institute of Air Research Europe Air Quality
Michael Gatari Kenya University of Nairobi Africa Air Quality

The primary roles of the AG were to assist in identifying documents, assess methodologies and analytic techniques, assess prioritization schemes, review findings, and review the project report. The primary forms of communication with the AG were email and through the interactive open project wiki page. This report was prepared using an interactive wiki page on the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) server. The members of the Analyst group used the wiki to collaboratively create the content, perform the editing and to share the evolving report with the Advisory Group. The open wiki approach also provided a platform for sharing the document as it evolved and for receiving feedback both from the AG and the GEO Air Quality Community of Practice (ESIP Air Quality Work Group). The wiki, being a living, participating document, facilitates future expansion or revision of this Critical Observations for Air Quality beyond the limited period of this initial GEO task.

2.3 Methodology

This section is a summary of analytic methods and approaches the Analyst used to identify documents, analyze them, and establish a set of priority Earth observations. No standard approaches are available for establishing EO requirements and priorities applicable to all SBAs. The GEO Task Leader, Lawrence Friedl, has encouraged the Analysts of each SBA to be innovative and possibly consider multiple approaches toward developing their respective methodologies for EO requirements and priorities. However, strong emphasis was placed on the need to describe and document the chosen methodologies.

2.3.1 Document Selection

This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to identify documents and select a representative sampling for the analysis. Task US-09-01a methodology recommended the examination of a wide range of publicly available, geographically distributed sources for potentially relevant documents, including: International, regional, and national documents, project reports, surveys, workshop and conference summaries and peer-reviewed journal articles.

For the identification of candidate documents, the Analyst used three sources: documents that were known to the Analyst; documents recommended by the Advisory Group and documents retrieved through online searches. The documents (5) from the Analyst's prior knowledge were based on decades of experience in AQ data analysis, network design and decision support for AQ management. The documents (15) provided by the AG contributed a broad range of educated perspectives as well as geographic coverage of developing countries. The online web searches focused on websites of international, regional, and national organizations engaged in Air Quality and Health, such as WHO, CDC and HEI. Online searches yielded most of the selected documents. The general online searches included search for published articles through Google Scholar and also general Google search using combination of keywords, such as 'air pollution', 'health', 'Africa'.

The above selection process for qualified documents relies on expert judgment and is inherently subjective. Effort was made to select documents that contain specific statements on the EO requirements, documents that report EOs, and documents that discuss EO requirements for AQ. As with previous analyses conducted for other SBAs, documents that contain such complete and directly applicable information were found to be rare. Hence, the key criteria for selection was that the document had to contain references to specific AQ EO parameters and attributes that are either needed or currently in use. In fact, most documents contain information on specific air pollutants, spatial and temporal coverage and resolution, and some information on data quality.

Once a document was identified as relevant it was assigned a number, a hard copy was printed and a table was attached to help the analysts extract the needed information about coverage, spatial and temporal resolution, accuracy and latency for each parameter identified in the document. The table included a form for information about the document: the title, region, document type and AQ subcategory as well as any EO needs. This document information along with an online link to the document was stored on a wiki webpage the group devoted to each document. The wiki pages were used to deposit both structured metadata and also loose annotations on each document. These metadata were contributed by several members of the AQ and Health Analyst group. In this manner, an online catalog of all documents was created.

The EO characteristics extracted from each selected document and deposited in the 'tables', constitute the main source of information for this meta analysis. The EOs are tabulated using the methodology given is section 2.3.2. The EO priorities are then derived using a set of objective and subjective weighing factors described in section 2.3.3.


2.3.2 Analytic Methods for Gathering EOs

The EO Requirements methodology development started with guidance provided by the Task leader in the form of a standard table for recording EOs from the documents. These standardized tables were to be used for each SBA report and intended for cross-SBA integration of the EO needs. During the methodology development, it became evident that additional attributes were required for the AQ EO needs and priorities. This report also benefited from the examination/evaluation of the completed GEO EO Priority Reports for Climate, Energy and Disasters SBAs.

The documents identified in Section 2.3.1 were visually scanned by the Analyst team 3-5 times. The first scan focused on the general suitability of the document for consideration in this assessment as outlined above. During the second scan, detailed data extraction was performed and recorded into the document's metadata record. It yielded a list of AQ-Health-related EOs and other factual data regarding the observations (e.g. coverage, space and time resolution, accuracy, latency, geographic region, document type.. etc). The purpose of the third scan was to seek additional EO requirements that could only be inferred from the documents. The nature of the inference were also noted in the document's metadata record. Since the metadata extraction methodology evolved during the four month analysis period (June-September 2009), the document scans were performed iteratively.

A key aspect of the methodology development consisted of choosing the sub-areas of the AQ domain: Pollutant Emissions, Transport, Ambient levels, Human Exposure. The rationale for choosing this division is stated and described in section 3.2. For each sub-area the EO status and desired requirements were compiled separately. A further subdivision of the user requirements was made by geographic region of World. In the subsequent analysis the user requirements defined along these two dimensions were aggregated to yield the overall needs for Air Quality and Health. The resulting analyzes of the gathered metadata are shown later in Section 3.3.

2.3.3 EO Prioritization fro AQ and Health

The parameters mentioned in each document were pulled together in a master spreadsheet to begin the prioritization process. For a given document, the title, ID given by analysts, region, document type and content type were entered. The parameters for each document were listed as columns and the doc ID number was used as a 'check mark' in the column's grid cell if a particular pollutant was present in the document. A count of each column provided a bibliometric analysis of the most frequently mentioned parameters. The list was then sorted twice, first by content type and then by region. Each region/content type was counted. For each content type, two tables were made with pollutants as the rows and geographic regions of the world as the columns for each content type. One table was for references for each region for each pollutant and the other table was the count that was mentioned for each pollutant for each region for each content type. This aided prioritization by identifying cross-cutting parameters and spatial gaps.

The main purpose of EOs for AQ and Health is to estimate the effects of air pollutants on human health and to help reduce these effects. The air pollution effects on human health are measured by the exposure of population to air pollutants in the ambient air. The exposure of a person is measured as the near-surface concentration of multiple air pollutants integrated over time. Exposure of an entire population is an integral of the individual exposures over space. Hence, the population exposure can be expressed as follows.

PopExposure = int_space int_time sum(C(i,s,t)*w(i))* P(s,t) ds dt = int_space int_time AQI ds dt = <math>Insert formula here</math>

where C(i,s,t) stands for the surface concentration C of an air pollutant, i, at location s and time t. The factor w(i) is health-relevant weight factor for each pollutant. The weighed sum over all pollutants is the chemical air quality index (AQI) to which an individual is exposed. The AQI = sum (C(i,s,t)*w(i)) is the air quality index (AQI) and depends on the chemical pollutant mix as well as space and time. AQI is obtained by direct measurement or alternate means for estimating individual pollutants concentrations (e.g. AQ model or surrogate measurements). The health-relevant pollutant weight factors arise from epidemiological health studies.

P(s,t) is the space and time-dependent population density and the product of AQI*P is the population exposure density for a specific location and time. The exposure of the entire population over time is obtained by integrating the population exposure density over space and time.

The population exposure estimation for the entire global population is currently very uncertain. The overall uncertainty is contributed by the (1) lack of proper chemical measurement methods for the complex mixture of air pollutants; (2) by the poor and highly variable coverage represented by the spatial and temporal integrals and (3) uncertainty of the concentration dose-health response relationship.

Our method of EO prioritization for AQ and Health is based on the above causality-based model: Priority is given to EOs that reduce the uncertainty of population exposure estimation. The exposure uncertainty is separated into the (1) chemical measurements and (2) spatial and temporal coverage. In other words, the highest priority is assigned to EOs that provide the most direct indicator of health effects and also contribute most to the spatial and temporal coverage.

The analytic method for this meta analysis includes multiple factors that are combined to yield a prioritized list of EOs. Combining these factors was accomplished by the use of weights attached to each factor and subsequently adding the weighed contributions to each EO priority. Hence, the outcome of the prioritization was derived from the selection of suitable factors and their respective weights. Selecting the factors that influence the EO needs is based on subjective judgment that is derived from the current understanding of the Air Quality-Health topic. For the derivation of the weight factors effort was made to apply as much as possible objective measures.

The analysts used three factors to prioritize the EO needs. The first was a bibliographic method to determine which pollutants were cited most. The second factor weighted the EOs for their potency (or how close they were to the actual cause of sickness) the EOs for coverage and the third factor weighed the EOs by their coverage.

For the bibliometric methods (OTA, 1986), priority was assigned based on the relative frequency with which an observation was cited by the documents. The pollutant potency factor was taken from health studies (epidemiological). The coverage factor for the EO priorities was based on the 'gap' between the current EO coverage and the desired EO coverage. The longer the gap, the higher is the coverage priority.

3. Air Quality and Health SBA

The distinguishing characteristics of the AQH SBA are: (1) The pollutant classes of most health significance are known from many epidemiological studies but AQH is a relatively narrow subject area compared to other SBAs.

  • Well defined needs for atmospheric compositions based on health effects
  • Large regional variation in the global coverage of EOs for AQH

These characteristics lead the Analyst team to organize this AQH EO assessment and prioritization document by global sub regions.

Additional sub-division EOs along the

  • Causality chain: Emission, Transport, Ambient, Exposure
  • End Uses: Informing Public, AQ Management, Science


Progress on improving air quality and decreasing acidic and toxic deposition (AQ) has been made in many parts of the world, particularly over North America and Europe, although problems persist or are getting worse in some less developed countries. The reductions in emissions that have brought about AQ improvements were motivated by scientific evidence of adverse impacts to health and welfare and have been accomplished through implementation of science-based policies and/or advances in technology nations.

Air pollution is caused primarily as the result of human activities and also mitigated by societal actions for reducing the levels of air pollution.

In the industrial world, the overwhelming majority of air pollution is caused by the combustion of energy-producing fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas.... hence the link to energy SBA,

Air pollutants also participate in the human-induced changes in the atmosphere hence climate link (visibility, dimming, global warming).

Air pollution also causes ecological effect (through acidification, ozone damage) ... link to ecosystems SBA

In many areas of the world, the ambient pollutants originate from biomass burning (agricultural), forest, Savannah or agricultural fires or dust storms. ... links to disasters SBA.

AQHI=10/10.4*(100*(EXP(0.000871*NO2)-1+ EXP(0.000537*O3)-1 + EXP(0.000487*PM2.5)-1))

3.1 Air Quality and Health Description

The Health SBA aims to understand and quantify the environmental factors affecting human health and well-being. According to the GEO 10-Year Plan Implementation Plan:

Health issues with Earth observation needs include: airborne, marine, and water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persistent organic pollutants; nutrition; and monitoring weather-related disease vectors. GEOSS will improve the flow of appropriate environmental data and health statistics to the health community promoting a focus on prevention and contributing to the continued improvements in human health worldwide.

The Air Quality and Health is a sub-area of the Health SBA. It examines the role of outdoor air quality for human health and well-being.

3.2 Air Quality Sub-Areas

Earth Observations for Health and Air Quality are not uniformly distributed. For this report, the Analysts classified priority EOs for different geographic regions using the physical breakdown shown in the table below. Earth Observations are needed at each stage from the emission of the pollutant to the population exposure. HEI Accountability Chain

3.2 Earth Observations: Types and Quality

Earth observations for Air Quality and Health have many dimensions, or facets, and therefore require a range of attributes for a full characterization and description. The natural dimensions of EOs are captured by measured parameters as well as their spatial and temporal extent. Each physical dimension is also characterized by the resolution of the observation, i.e. spatial and temporal resolution, and the possible grouping/lumping/binning of the measured parameters. Other facets of EOs include relevancy to the application, data quality, tracability, timeliness, etc.

For the most part, EOs cannot be used directly as raw data for decision making. Value adding processes (data filtering, aggregation and fusion) are needed to derive decision-ready products. The complementary use of EOS with air quality models is particularly important given the model’s potential to characterize multiple pollutant species across variable spatial and temporal scales. The more difficult characterization of EOs is along the value chain from the raw observed data to the derived information and knowledge that is useful for decision making. A typical derived parameters is the air pollution index, an aggregate of multiple air pollutant concentrations, that informs the public on the general level of air pollution and facilitates personal decision making. Similarly, compliance with an AQ standard (derived from multi-year data series) informs an air quality manager whether an AQ control action is required.

3.2.1 Air Quality Parameters

3.2.2 Air Quality Observation Coverage - Global, Regional

3.2.3 Air Quality Process - Emission, Transport, Ambient, Health

3.3 Documents - Popularity

Observation Param Histo.png
Table 4. Documents measuring Earth Observations for Pollutants

' Africa Asia Non SE Asia Southeast Europe Interntional N. America S. America
SO2 32,52,53,56,57,58,64,68,69 65,73,90,91 19,39,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,83,84,86,88,89,92 4,6,60,61,94 18 8,22,26,27,28,43,95 48,66
NO2 32,52,53,56,58,64,68 65,71,90 19,39,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,84,86,88 4,6,60,61,94 18 8,22,26,27,28,43,95 66
NOx 32,58,69 73,91 19,39,75,83,89,92 6,60,61,94 18 27
CO 15,32,52,58,64,68,69 65,71,73,90,91 19,39,50,74,75,76,77,79,80,81,83,84,88,89,92 6,60,61,94 18 8,26,27,43,95 48,66
O3 15,32,52,58,64 71,73,90,91 19,39,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,83,84,89 6,60,61,94 13,18 8,12,22,26,27,28,43 48,66
VOC 15,32,52,58,69 73,91 6,60,61,94
PM10 32,52,56,64 71,73,90,91 19,50,51,75,76,77,78,79,80,89,93 4,6,60,61,94 13,17,18 8,22,26,27,44 48,66
PM2.5 56 73,91 80 4,6,60,61,94 14,17,18 8,12,26,27,28,44
Lead 64 72 19,39,75,80,83 37,94 26
Aer. Carbon 68 83 4 14 26 66
TSP 53,57 65 39,74,75,77,80,81,82,83,84,86,88,92,93 66
AOD 61 26,44
HNO3 6 27
POPs 6,62,94
HCHO 43
AQI 61
Weather 91 84 12

3.3.1 Documents by Process

AQ Obs Histo.png
Table 2. Documents with measured Earth Observations by Region for Categories

' Africa Asia Non SE Asia Southeast Europe Interntional N. America S. America
Emission 23 19 6 43,44,95
Transport 23 6 43
Ambient 15,23,52,64,67,68,69 65,71,72,73,90,91 19,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,86,88,89,92,93 6,60,61,62,94 13,14,18 8,22,26,28,27,43,44 48,66
Health 41,51 13,14 8,22,28, 48

AQ ObsNeeds Histo.png
Table 3. Documents with needs for Earth Observations by Region for Categories

' Africa Asia Non SE Asia Southeast Europe Interntional N. America S. America
Emission 20,86 9,62,94 10,11,17,18,34,45,59 7,26,36,38,40,95
Transport 20,74,87,89 6,9,62 11,17,18,45,59 7,26,38,40,42,95
Ambient 1,25,31,52,53,56,57,70 72,73 20,29,39,41,50,74,82,86,87,88,92,93 3,4,6,9,35,37,60,61,62,63 2,10,11,14,17,18,33,34,45,59 7,8,12,26,36,38,40,42
Health 25 20,29,41,84 3,4,9,35 2,10,11,14,33,34,59 7,8,12,26,36
Weather 20 6,94 18,45,59 26,40
Satellites 64 19 6 11,17,18,45,46,59 26,27,38,40,42,43,44,95
Models 15 19,20,84,86,88 6,9,60,61,94 11,13,17,18,34,45,59 7,26,40,42,43,95

3.3.2 Documents by Region

Regions All References
Africa 1,15,23,25,31,32,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,64,67,68,69,70
Asia Non SE 65,71,72,73,90,91
Asia Southeast 19,20,29,39,41,50,51,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,86,87,88,89,92,93,97
Europe 3,4,6,9,35,37,60,61,62,63,94
Interntional 2,10,11,13,14,16,17,18,21,33,34,45,46,47,59,98,99,103,105,106,107
N. America 7,8,12,22,26,27,28,36,38,40,42,43,44,95,96,100,101,102,104
S. America 48,66,108

DocumentsbyRegionHisto.png NeedsObsComparisonbyRegion.png

3.4 Users and uses of Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health

  • General public
    • Current and forecast air quality including
    • Alerts and recommended/mandatory actions during air pollution events
    • General causes and pattern of AQ in a neighborhood
  • Air quality managers
    • Establishing health-based AQ standards through epidemiological studies that relate human health effects to ambient air quality.
    • Monitoring for (a) compliance with health-based air quality standards through routine measurement of air quality in polluted and populated areas, (b) Long-term monitoring air quality and tracking of progress toward stated goals of rules, regulations and control strategies.
    • Control actions ....
  • Scientist
    • Research on atmospheric processes including emissions, transport, chemical transformation and removal processes on local, regional and global scales
    • Development and evaluation of chemical transport models that are used for forecasting, development of control strategies and national and intentional policies.
    • Determination of pollutant effects on human health (e.g. cancer, pulmonary, cardiovascular diseases) and welfare (e.g. acidification, effects on climate, visibility, damage to man-made materials)


  1. Reporting of air quality information to the public including timely alerts and forecasts as well as historical and regional pattern.
  2. Observation-based verification of emissions for urban, industrial, agricultural sources as well as from natural sources (forest fires, windblown dust).
  3. Determination of welfare effects, including terrestrial and aquatic acidification, effects on climate, visibility and damage to man-made materials.


Identifying the key users is a necessity for proper evaluation of their Earth Observation (EO) needs. In this report uses and user categories are represented in a two dimensional matrix. The first dimension is the end-use category. An end user uses the EO for making a personal or societal decision. We consider three groups of end-users of air quality-relevant observations: general public, air quality managers, and air quality policy makers. Each end user group has different information needs. The respective information needs for each end user category will be determined.

The second dimension of EO user classification is along the value chain that transforms the raw observations into suitable information for the decision-makers (end users). Data managers and data flow mediators are a class of users who are responsible for the timely, robust and proper flow of EOs to the SBA application. These users, can be considered part ot the GEO information infrastructure. Intermediate users include researchers, analysts, and modelers who digest and prepare the raw observations in a manner that is suitable for the end-users' decision making needs. The consumers of the processed EOs are the end-users listed above. Classifying users along the value adding chain would aid consistency with the GEOSS data sharing infrastructure, the right information is delivered to the right user. It is here recognized that public documents that explicitly address the information requirements for each user class in the 2D user matrix will be sparse.

  • Emphasis on quality control… at all stages of the data flow.

GEOSS 10-Year Plan Reference Document Pg. 43

[earthobservations.org/docs/10-Year%20Implementation%20Plan.pdf GEOSS 10 Year Implementation Plan]


  • GEOSS will be a vital means of bringing useful environmental data to the health community in a user friendly form. Comprehensive data sets are powerful tools that support prevention, early warning, research, epidemiology, health care planning and delivery, and provide a variety of timely public alerts. For example, by linking weather, air quality data and the urban heat island effects, air quality forecasts can help protect asthmatics, the elderly and the young from cardiovascular and respiratory problems resulting from air pollution episodes. These data can also provide linkages to longer-term air quality impacts such as cancers, respiratory diseases, asthma and birth defects.

4. Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health

4.1 Observations by Pollutant

4.2 Observation by Coverage

StationsByregion.png FractionOfStationsParam Arica.png FractionOfStationsParam Asia.png FractionOfStationsParam NAmerica.png NumberOfStationsByParameter.png

4.3 Observations that are needed for Air Quality Processes

5. Priority Earth Observations for Air Quality and Health

5.1 General Description

5.2 Priority Observations

This section provides summary information of the Health and Air Quality, highlights specific features of the meta-analysis and the broad uses and user-types of Earth Observations in AQ.


DocsByObsParameter.png DocsByParameter NonNAmerica.png DocsByParameter NAmerica.png



EO Regional Requirements

Priority Observations

  • Pollutant Potency
  • Pollutant Concentration, Dose
  • Observation Coverage, Quality
  • Observation Category

This section contains the results from the prioritization method(s) applied to the observations identified in section 4.


Observation Category Parameter Aggregated Characteristics of Priority Observation Parameters
Coverage/Extent Spatial Temporal Accuracy Latency Other
Air Pollution PM2.5
PM10/TSP
SO2
O3
NO2/NO
CO
VOCs
Metals
Black Carbon
Airtoxics
NH3
POPs
Other Weather
Surface Character
Demographic


StationsByPersonRegion.png

Summary of Results

The bibliographic weighting is shown in the figure below for all of the documents analyzed.

FreqofAirPollParam.png

Priority observations.

This section contains the specific priority Earth observations for the Air Quality and Health.

Global

Additional Findings

Analyst Comments and Recommendations

Process & Methodology

Challenges (e.g., Advisory Group, Documents, Observations & Meta-analysis)

Appendix

Acronyms

Abbreviation Full Name
AG Advisory Group
AIP GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot
AOD Aerosol Optical Depth
AQ Air Quality
AQ CoP Air Quality Community of Practice
AQH Air Quality and Health
AQI Air Quality Index
CAPITA Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis
CASAC Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
CDC Center for Disease Control
CO Carbon Monoxide
EO Earth Observation
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
ERG Eastern Research Group
ESA European Space Agency
ESIP Earth Science Information Partners
GCI GEOSS Common Infrastructure
GEO Group on Earth Observation
GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of Systems
HCHO Formaldehyde
HEI Health Effects Institute
IGAC International Global Atmospheric Chemistry
NAS National Academy of Science
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NH3 Ammonia
NO2 Nitrogen Dioxide
NOx Nitrogen Oxides
O3 Ozone
PM Particulate Matter
PM 10 PM less than 10 um in diameter
PM 2.5 PM less than 2.5 um in diameter
POPs Persistant Organic Pollutants
SBA Societal Benefit Area
SO2 Sulfur Dioxide
TSP Total Suspended Particulates, PM of any size
UIC User Interface Committee
VOC Volatile Organic Compounds
WHO World Health Institute
WMO World Meteorological Institute

Bibliography (can be split into the two if desired – not required to do so)

This section can list the documents and references in one list. Or, if preferred, this section can split the documents and references according to those “cited” and those “consulted.”

References Cited

List of the documents cited in the analysis.

References Consulted

 OrganizationYearDocument RegionTypeDocURL
2002 National Air Quality Status ReportDENR Philippines2002http://www.denr.gov.ph/article/view/188/
A Methodology for Cost-Benefit Analysis of Ambient Air Pollution Health ImpactsBin Jalaludin1,2, Glenn Salkeld3, Geoff Morgan4,5, Tom Beer6, Yasir Bin Nisar12009InternationalReporthttp://www.environment.gov.au/atmosphere/airquality/publications/pubs/cost-benefit-analysis.pdf
APINA Botswana Country Fact SheetAPINA RAPIDC2008Africahttp://apinanet.org/facts/FS Botswana 20080228.pdf
APINA Country Fact SheetsAPINAAfricaOtherhttp://apinanet.org/facts/
APINA Malawi Country Fact SheetAPINA RAPIDC2008Africahttp://apinanet.org/facts/FS Malawi 20080229.pdf
... further results

Other appendices as needed

AQ GEO Task 0901a Report Outline v.1

Extra Material For Report

AQ Burden x Dose Responsex Population density 



However, the ambient concentration of air pollutants is highly variable in space and time and is documented the least. Hence, the main uncertainty of health effects is the inadequate pollutant  information on the global scale of air pollution, particularly over urban-industrial areas where people reside.

The second source of uncertainty arises from not knowing what the harming pollutant concentration is. This uncertainty is contributed from the lack of EOs at the desired space and time. For instance large fractions of Africa, Asia and S. America have no AQ monitors and hence the concentrations are not known.

C O V E R A G E ---------


Satellite Needs for AQ also coverage: The current observation system for AQ is woefully inadequate to monitor population exposure and develop effective emission control strategies. Surface air measurement networks have insufficient coverage, and are generally lacking in the developing world. (Edwards, et Al., 2006)

ask how current ambient particulate matter concentration in SSA cities compare with these values.Unfortunately,

very little monitoring data exist upon which to base even

preliminary answer (Vliet and Kinney, 2007)


transportation emissions are high (Vliet and Kinney, 2007). It is reasonable to ask how current ambient particulate matter concentrations in SSA cities compare with these values.Unfortunately, very little monitoring data exist upon which to base even a preliminary answer. A recent analysis of the global environmental burden of disease due to ambient PM uncovered useful air monitoring data from only three sites in all of SSA

(Cohen et al 2004).

Ozone troposphere (Fishman, 2008) Use for spatial/temporal resolution needs (EC/ESA, 2006) 

(111) Cohen 2004 -


Future estimates of the global burden of disease due to outdoor air pollution would benefit from both additional research and methods development.

There is a critical need for better information on the health effects of air pollution in developing counties.

Exposure research should aim to provide better estimates not only of ambient concentrations but also the characteristics of outdoor air pollution, including the contribution of various sources and the size distribution of PM.

Estimates of uncertainty distributions should more fully incorporate model uncertainties, such as those related to the choice of concentration-response function (National Research Council, 2002).



Emphasis on quality control… at all stages of the data flow.

Multi-pollutant monitoring (Brooks, 2008; Cohen, 2004)



future scenario for ozone(Fowler, 2008)

In same context, lead is phasing out (CERN, 2009)


        • Earth observations for Air Quality and Health have many dimensions or facets, thus require a range of attributes for a full characterization and description. The natural dimensions of EOs are the measured parameters as well as the spatial and temporal extent. Each physical dimension is also characterized by the resolution of the observation, i.e. spatial and temporal resolution, and the possible grouping/lumping of the measured parameters. Other facets of EOs include relevancy to the application, data quality, traceability, timeliness, etc.****


AQ GEO Task - Unused Texts

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