Brooke L. Hemming, Ph.D. US EPA/National Center for Environmental Assessment Stefan Falke, Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis Terry Keating, Ph.D. US EPA/Office of Air and Radiation Brooke L. Hemming, Ph.D. US EPA/National Center for Environmental Assessment Stefan Falke, Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis Terry Keating, Ph.D. US EPA/Office of Air and Radiation Networked Environmental Information System for Global Emissions Inventories ( NEISGEI ) “Applying 21st Century Advances in Information Technology to the Conversion of Environmental Data into Scientific-, Management- and Policy-Relevant Knowledge”

Collaborative Science and Management Networks  Cyberinfrastructure NSF’s initiative to apply new IT to building new ways of conducting collaborative research  Earth Observation Summit International effort to build comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation systems  Ecoinformatics EPA’s vision for national and international cooperation in data and technology development Advances in information science and technology are driving the trend toward distributed networks and virtual communities for science and management. Integrated Ocean Observing System International network of ocean related monitoring, assessment, and communication Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery Network of high-performance computers and software to gain new insights into weather Virtual Observatory Network for astronomical data sharing and distributed analysis

Emissions Community Collaborative Activities  NIF Data standards  Standard format and submission  NEI XML schema  Environmental Information Exchange Network  Network linking EPA, States, and other partners through the Internet and standardized data formats  Facility Registry System  Standard facility codes and locations  Data Sharing Efforts  States, Tribes, Local agencies, RPOs  North America

 …is both a conceptual framework and implementation effort for the development of a fully integrated, distributed air emissions inventory – and the foundation for an all-media environmental information network  Tie together data at all spatial and temporal scales using emerging distributed database technologies  Provide shared, online tools for processing and analysis  Provide for the seamless merging, manipulation and analysis of any web- based -- and desk-top resident -- air quality-relevant data through the development of emerging Internet-oriented technologies  Make use of existing resources – link and partner with other efforts  Build a broad-based air quality user community: scientists, regulators, policy analysts and the public  Create the network and toolkit piece-wise, allowing immediate functionality and value to the air quality community Networked Environmental Information System for Global Emissions Inventories NEISGEI

CAREN: The California Air Resources Network US EPA RPOs AQMDsMunicipalitiesTribesStates ??? Environmental data sharing among international, national, state and local governments, the public and academic and other non-governmental research organizations is a difficult challenge. ► Barrier: Technological incompatibilities ► Barrier: Data format incompatibilities ► Barrier: Financial (staff time) limitations Eduard Hovy, Jose-Luis Ambite, Andrew Philpot USC Information Sciences Institute Our Solution Strategy (First Step): Automate the integration of heterogeneous databases Use semi-automated information integration methods to generate translation protocols between related information sources, e.g. AQMD and CARB.

Integrated N. American Emission Inventory Demo The Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and the US EPA are supporting a project to develop a prototype web tool for demonstrating uniform access to distributed emissions data from North American electricity generating power plants. Co-investigator: Greg Stella, Alpine Geophysics Air pollutant emission inventories for the US, Canada, and Mexico are compiled and stored using different methods ► Identify, collect, and review existing sources of electric generating utility emissions and activity databases, and provide a summary of the state-of-science ► Build and demonstrate a relational database and web browser tool to query, retrieve, and explore emissions data from these distributed databases.

Fire, Smoke, and Air Quality Network Pilot ► Access to distributed fire related data ► Graphical browsing and display ► Online analysis tools

What’s possible with NEISGEI ? Collaborative Air Quality Management ► Emerging air quality issues require cooperative efforts among multiple jurisdictions ► Sharing expertise across borders and agencies maximizes program success and cost effectiveness NEISGEI will provide a mechanism for collaborative work by providing… ► A common, shared pool of data and tools ► A shared analytic tool set designed for interoperability ► Simple browsing through catalogs of emissions inventories, measurement data, modeling outputs and analysis tools ► An environment in which each participant contributes in their area of expertise and gains benefit from others. ► A virtual community gathering point

NEISGEI Community Objectives  Gain new insights by combining skills, data, and tools from multiple participants  Provide data access to a broader user base, including the public  Identify data gaps at multiple spatial and temporal scales  Enable simplified, multi-party, cross-border collaboration  Provide environment for new collaborative analysis  Improve data quality through extended use, verification and versioning control  Build and share reusable components across the network

Ex. Emissions Community Resource of Data & Tools XML NEON GIS Estimation Methods RDBMS Geospatial One-Stop Transport Models Emissions Inventory Catalog Users & Projects Web Tools/Services NEI Data Data Catalogs Activity Data Spatial Allocation Comparison of Emissions Methods Data Analysis Model Development Wrappers Emissions Factors Surrogates

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