An Urban Environmental Monitoring And Information System
Price
Free (open access)
Transaction
Volume
123
Pages
10
Page Range
111 - 120
Published
2009
Size
1,437 kb
Paper DOI
10.2495/AIR090101
Copyright
WIT Press
Author(s)
J. F. G. Mendes, L. T. Silva, P. Ribeiro & A. Magalhães
Abstract
Evaluating, monitoring and informing about urban environmental quality has become a main issue, particularly important when considered as a decisionmaking tool that contributes to more habitable and sustainable cities. Following a tendency observed in other European cities, the city of Braga (Portugal) has decided to create an infrastructure for environmental data acquisition and a webbased platform as a public information system. Some of the innovations introduced in this new platform include the use of mobile instrumented units, the extensive use of simulation software to create long-term pollution (air and noise) maps, and the presentation of the information through a geographical interface developed over Google Maps technology. This paper discusses some of the critical aspects regarding the conceptual design of such an information system, and presents the actual information system developed for Braga, named SmarBRAGA. Keywords: environmental monitoring, public information, air pollution, noise.
Keywords
environmental monitoring, public information, air pollution, noise