Development of an Air Quality Management Decision Support System for Beijing, China By Jo Ellen Brandmeyer, Eric Solano, Robert A. Zerbonia George Gao Li Xin, Chen Tian, and Jiang Jiawen For 2004 Models-3 Conference, October 18-20, 2004

Overview  Project overview  AQMDSS architecture  Database design  Connectivity  User Interface  Conclusions

Project Overview  Purpose is to create a decision support system for the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (BMEPB)  Objectives of the AQMDSS:  Help BMEPB to understand the contributors to poor air quality  Provide source apportionment tools  Simulate control decisions  Produce next day air quality forecasts

Team Members  Project management  George Gao, PA Consulting  AQMDSS design and implementation, training  Robert A. Zerbonia, Jo Ellen Brandmeyer, Eric Solano, Mark Bruhn, and Chengwei Yao, RTI International  Translation, loading emissions inventory and other data sets, on-site GIS support, training  Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Beijing Institute of Surveying and Mapping, other research groups

AQMDSS Architecture  MIMS framework  EPA air quality models with pre- and post-processors  CMAQ/Models-3 – SMOKE, Mobile, BEIS  AERMOD  Chemical Mass Balance (CMB)  Cost-effectiveness tool

Architecture  Visualization Tools  PAVE  GIS mapping capabilities  PostgreSQL object-relational database management system  Java  JDK on Linux server  JVM on PCs  X-Win32 on PCs

Database Design  Robust  Referential integrity included within structure  Range constraints to reduce processing errors  Flexible  User interface for adding data to lookup tables  Designed for multiple models – NEI country codes – Additional tables and fields to support processors and models in the AQMDSS  Includes spatial data for use with GIS

Connectivity  No changes to models  Extractors to read data from database  Extract data from database to file structure required by a model  Use parameter values from MIMS scenarios  Convert from metric system to units required by the models  Inserters to write data to the database  User selects data to add to database for later analysis

User Interface  Designed to minimize data entry errors  Drop-down boxes and browsers for codes  Screens support referential integrity – Parent/child frames support parent/child relationships in database  Additional range-checking

Multi-Lingual User Interface  MIMS GUI  Editing Java source code to replace strings with lookups to Properties files  Data entry GUIs  Java code looks up strings to display  All strings are in files in the file system to simplify translation and maintenance  Providing AQMDSS using both Chinese and English strings  Easily translatable to other languages (e.g., Spanish)  Default is English for any string not found in target language

Conclusions  AQMDSS currently in development  Beijing-based research groups to transfer data from existing databases  Testing next year  Delivery by end of 2005  User training to be performed in both Beijing and the United States