Brussels — Fine particulate matter is now one of the biggest
threats to human health from air pollution. A new technique to
monitor the concentration of particulate matter in urban air,
using satellite-borne sensors, offers a much more cost-
effective approach than traditional land-based monitoring.
The first trials of this system, developed by 11 partners in
the European Commission-funded ICAROS-NET (Integrated
Computational Assessment of urban air quality via Remote
Observation Systems NETwork) project, will be presented in
Athens on 15 October 2002. ICAROS-NET runs for three years
from September 2001. The satellite-borne sensors will monitor
atmospheric pollution at very high resolution in areas as
small as 30 metres in diameter, by measuring the proportion
of light blocked by particulate matter. Preliminary mapping
shows that over the 1987-2002 period Aerosol Optical
Thickness (AOT), a measure of the optical effect of
particulates in the atmosphere, steadily grew in Athens.
Results will help improve environmental policy making in
Europe and the effectiveness of international environmental
treaties.
“ICAROS-NET will provide for a user-friendly system to
assess air quality. It will be of great help to public
authorities for taking the right decisions in the
environmental field” said EU Research Commissioner Philippe
Busquin. “It will simplify the integration of data from
different sources, including from future monitoring tools,
presenting consistent information to policy-makers. Across
Europe, the integration of air quality data sourced from
satellite sensors will help to better measure and reduce
pollution. This project is an excellent example of the
types of services that could become available as a result
of the EU Commission’s initiative for building a Global
Monitoring for Environment and Security capability (GMES).”
The Commission is leading a team of ten other partners,
from Greece, Germany, Hungary and Italy, on the three-year
ICAROS-NET project to develop an intelligent networked
system to monitor and manage air quality. This will be
flexible enough to be used at urban, regional and cross-
border levels. Given the need for co-ordinated international
action to resolve environmental problems linked to air
pollution, the ICAROS-NET system will be capable of use by
all EU Member States and applicant countries in central
Europe.
ICAROS-NET will use four areas as test-beds to validate the
system. Athens (Greece) is the first, an urban area with
major pollution problems. Further tests will take place on
the urban scale in Budapest (Hungary) and Munich (Germany),
and at the regional level in Lombardy (Italy). In addition
to validating the measurement capabilities of the system,
the trials will also evaluate the performance of the
telematics network designed to allow integrated monitoring
and forecasting of air pollution across the whole EU.
Sensors carried on satellites can provide both an
assessment of the health of vegetation in the surveyed
area, and the quantity of particulate matter in the
atmosphere. By integrating the information measured by
satellite sensors with data derived from ground-based
measurements, and computer-based pollution dispersion
models, ICAROS-NET will be able to provide a consistent
picture of air pollution over a wide geographic area.
The information obtained can then be input to a fully
interoperable urban environmental management decision
support system. This information will be shared across
Europe.
For further information please see:
http://mara.jrc.it/icaros.html
http://mara.jrc.it/icaros-net/index.html
GMES:
