JAMS
Joint Air Monitoring
System
Keywords:Transnational monitoring
network air qualityJoint Air Monitoring System
Application site: Lower Silesia, Dis. Jelenia Góra and Walbrzych,P; Northern Bohemia, Cz; Saxony, De
E-mail: dkobus@pharebt.cz
Context
The Polish, Czech and German border areas
(southern Saxony in Germany, northern Bohemia in
the Czech Republic, and Lower Silesia in Poland)
have been recognised as one of the most
environmentally degraded regions of Europe. It
c overs an area of 32,400 sq. k m , and has a
population of 6.4 million. The intensive mining of
lignite began in those areas of Central Europe in the
19th century. Following the development of lignite-mining,
the region became intensively industrialised
after the 2nd World War. The side effect was
environmental pollution, which, by the accumulation
of industrial activity in a small area and without
sufficient measures for the protection of the
environment, caused a heavy rate of pollution both
on local and transnational areas.
Since 1989 Poland, Germany and Czech Republic had to face a difficult legacy such as the results of a long period of relentless environmental degradation. They agreed that only common, trilateral co-operation could lead to a significant improvement of the environment in such a Central European lignite-mining area.
In June 1991, the Environment Ministers of Czech Republic, Germany and Poland issued a joint declaration at a meeting in Dobris that created a trilateral Working Group for neighbourly co-operation.
The primary task of the Working Group was to prepare an action plan of joint priority tasks. The programme created by the Ministers became the international Regional Environmental Black Triangle Programme. The European Commission joined the Working Group as a fourth partner, providing financial support through the PHARE Regional Environment Programme.
Objectives
The main goal of the Black Triangle Programme was
to support creation of international co-operation in
the field of air pollution, affected by transboundary
dispersion of pollution caused by power plants
burning coal. The project gathers three countries to
find out a common solution for abating the emission
level. This task has been achieved by the
establishment of the Joint Air Monitoring System.
The main objectives of the system are:
- To create a mechanism for continuous air quality control and meteorological parameters, to obtain complementary information about the quality of different environmental components and to create a decision support system for efficient environmental management
- To assure good quality measurement according to international standards, recognisable by all cooperating countries and international institutions.The measurements are utilised for short and long-term forecasting of the status of air pollution in the study area
- The measurements help to verify models for contribution assessment of the largest emission sources of air pollution in certain regions and will also serve for verification of transboundary pollution models. This allows for prioritisation of tasks for the most effective improvement of the environment
- Elaboration of air pollution forecasts is supported by information about the vertical thermodynamic profiles of air layers up to 1000 m, coming from a SODAR/RASS meteorological station
- Wind speed and direction data as well as temperature gradient data, gathered at the SODAR/RASS station, allows for detection of inversion layers, the presence of which is directly connected with the growth of pollution concentration on the area of inversion.
The system consists of 42 fully automated monitoring stations. The basic monitoring programme includes the continuous measurement of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2) and suspended dust. Most stations measure ozone (O3). Some stations also measure carbon monoxide (CO). Meteorological parameters are also collected, i.e. windspeed and direction, temperature, humidity, solar radiation and atmospheric pressure. Manual measurements are also performed in some stations on poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and metals measured from dust samples and pH, conductivity, sulphates, nitrates etc. Acquisition, validation and processing of data, use a common ISO7168 standard. Release of monthly, half-yearly and yearly reports are prepared showing the state of the environment on local and regional scale. Electronic reports include also processed data and graphical representation of the results on the Internet web site.
Technical characteristics
The monitoring stations measure the concentration
of pollution continuously and store data locally in its
data base. The data is transferred on demand of the
central acquisition system (CAS) and stored in the
data base. Application of LAN and WAN for data
distribution and delivery is used. The
communication procedure are different according
to the countries and a uniform data exchange
system was developed, based on the Meteosat
satellite, in order to have standard exchange
procedure for measurements. The monitoring
centres in Jelenia Góra (P), Radebeul in Dresden
(D), and Ústi nad Labem (CZ) were all therefore
equipped with satellite receivers.
The standard communication system (telephone line) is present in all the stations while the satellite data transmission started in 1998 at the Polish site. Validated data will be exchanged between the country centres via the wide area network DatexP, EuroTel and Polpak as well as the Internet. Measurement results collected in country regional centres are checked through a validation and processing procedure. These data are distributed in textual and graphical form to the relevant institutions and to the public. Data from each monitoring centre is also exchanged online, assuring direct access to environmental information across the region.
The Central Acquisition System in Jelenia Góra (Poland) was recently connected to Internet through a high speed leased line, giving access to data for authorised persons, online, 24 hours a day. The Polish Central Acquisition System (CAS) is located at the Voivodship Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (Wojewódzki Inspektorat Ochrony Srodowiska) in Jelenia Góra. CAS is equipped with an IBM RS/6000 workstation. The central computer works under the IBM AIX 3.2.5 Operating System with an X/Window graphical user interface. The application of software conforms to the ISO 7168 standard and is approved by the French agency, ADEME.
The CAS software has built-in communication procedures within monitoring stations. The system uses a wireless packet radio communication system. Any station can also be served also via switched telephone or direct cable links. The advantage of such a multi-tasking software environment allows the simultaneous performance of different tasks. The Czech Central Acquisition system is located at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (Cesky Hydrometeorologicky Ustav), in Ústí nad Labem. The German Central Acquisition System is located at Sächsisches Landesamt Für Umwelt und Geologie at Radebeul in Dresden.
Transferability
The Black Triangle Joint Air Monitoring System
(JAMS) is a typical air quality information system,
which comprises measurement, data transmission
and interpretation. Potential users will benefit from
the previous implementation of the project and in
particular, experience on how to solve the
integration of different air quality information
systems.
Do you have a comment, reaction or opinion regarding what you've read? If so, please leave it at the online discussion board!
The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe
