Accessing and Disseminating Air Quality Data through Interoperable Geospatial Services

Urban air quality control and monitoring are major concerns throughout the world. Real-time accessing and processing of air quality observations are key components for successful environmental monitoring and management. The emergence of air quality monitoring sensors and geospatial services are providing the fundamental infrastructure to begin building interactive analysis environment for planning better urban conditions. One of the applied solutions to monitor and mange the air pollution problem is the use of the sensor networks which are connected to Internet using various communicational channels. While air quality observations have tremendous scientific values, their potentials are not fully explored. In this case, the difficulties in information dissemination across heterogeneous computing platforms are the most important issues to be resolved. In other words, the lack of standard data structure and access methods for transporting and exchanging observations from one system to another in heterogeneous computing environments are the challenges to be addressed. With this in mind, this paper aims at using geospatial services in conjunction with Observation and Measurement (O&M) model to provide an efficient air quality dissemination framework for Tehran. Based on our practical tests, the framework proved to be an efficient solution for interoperable accessing and disseminating air quality sensor observations.