)04 
RS 
ber 
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A CUSTOMISED GIS 
FOR AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT 
Sh. Rahmatizadeh*, M. R. Delavar®, S. Motesaddi“ 
“ Master student, Dept.GIS, F aculty of Surveying engineering, KNT university, Sh_Rahmat@yahoo.com 
n Dept. of Surveying and Geomatic engineering, Faculty of engineering University of Tehran, 
mdelavar@ut.ac.ir 
e Dept. of environmental health, Shahid Beheshti medical Science university, Tehran, Iran 
motesadi@irandoe.org 
Commission VII, WG VII/3 
KEY WORD: Spatial Information Science, Environment, GIS, Air pollution, Design, Development 
ABSTRACT: 
One of the major problems of Tehran, Capital city of Iran, is air pollution that seriously affects human's health. Spatial dispersion of 
air pollutants such as CO, NO», SO, and PM rom stationary and mobile sources or natural disasters has important effect on the air 
quality. 
Proper management of the problem is considered to be quite complex due to lack of accurate, up to date and organized geospatial 
data and analysis as well as lack of an integrated system for acquisition, storage, manipulation, retrieval, analysis, presentation and 
exchange of environmental data. 
Nowadays, geospatial information Systems (GIS) as management and Supporting systems, enable us to integrate and analyze a 
number of environmental data from different sources to model the overall impact of air pollutants on environment. 
This paper presents the process of design and development of a customized temporal GIS for environmental management. Based on 
hourly, daily and monthly data acquired from seven air quality monitoring stations distributed in Tehran, a number of spatial and 
statistical analyses have been performed. 
Spatial analysis such as overlay, buffering and zoning have been performed and provide an environmental alarming system. Spatial 
correlation and distribution factors and their impact on environmental pollution have been considered in this research. 
The initial results of the analysis showed that the developed customized system as an environmental decision support system (EDSS) 
can be effectively used in monitoring and managing different pollutants. 
À number of new GIS-based systems are currently installed 
which play an important role in making decisions at various 
I. INTRODUCTION levels of management. Making decision is a complex process 
influenced by many factors. The basic advantage of this 
science and technology is its ability to manage and integrate 
with the present database. However, a better, efficient and 
cost effective approach to monitor the ambient air quality is 
to customize GIS to manage environmental data. 
Tehran is the capital of Iran with total area of about 700 
Km2. Mountains surrounds North and East of the city. 
Tehran is one of the few capitals of the world, which is 
neither near a river nor close to a sea. The average of rainfall 
is 230 mm and there is no rain for about 6 months of a year. 
Also the growing population and urban as well as industrial 
development have created an air pollution problem for the 2. AIR POLLUTION MONITORING 
city. [Asadollah-Fardi] STATIONS IN TEHRAN 
Regarding the Special geographical situation of Tehran and 
expansion of spatial dispersion of the pollutants which Air pollution is defined as any atmospheric condition in 
belong to stationary and mobile Sources or natural disasters, which certain substances present in such concentrations and 
government and citizens in this metropolitan have to use the duration that they may produce harmful effects on man and 
latest science and technology to develop air quality his environment [Mulaku, 2001]. Common air pollutants 
management. include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, 
The air pollution reaches to a level which can significantly total suspend particular mater (TSM) which includes dust, 
influence human's health. For each city clean air is one of the smoke, pollen and other solid particles. 
most valuable sources. Air quality management system The major sources of air pollutants are man's industrial 
(AQMS) can be defined as a regulation of the amount, manufacturing and motor vehicle operation activities, both of 
location and time of pollutant emissions to achieve some them have been concentrated in urban areas, where also the 
clearly defined set of ambient air quality standards or goals. bulk of the World's population live. 
For an efficient AQMS, there is a need to define a decision Most developing countries have no air quality management 
Support system. [Hussain, 2003] capabilities despite having the fastest growing urban 
A geospatial information System (GIS) is a computer-based populations. Lack of expertise to formulate air pollution 
information system which enables us to capture, model, management policies: low budget priority given to air 
manipulate, retrieve, analyze and present the geographically pollution when compared with other social and 
referenced data. [Aronoff, 1991] 
1111