Author(s)

C. Martins

Abstract

The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) is legally mandated to collect and report to community level the required air quality information in the framework of the existing Air Quality and CAFE Directives. The Geographic Information National System (SNIG) is the Portuguese Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) whose purpose is to provide, from several access points, services for the search, viewing and exploration of geographic information (GI) over Portuguese territory. Other attributions are the coordination of the national GI activities, namely in the INSPIRE context. This will certainly be an essential source of data in order to incorporate data layers of relevant information considered onto concentration mapping and improving the quality of data visualization, which will be incorporated into the GIS. This joint work will be absolutely effective in order to achieve the operability of the actions needed under the INSPIRE requirements. For the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) a set of regulated ways for the collection, storage, processing and distribution of main elements concerning the geographical information under the GIS development will be necessary. One of the methods for collecting alphanumeric information after its acquisition would be through a specific database with a convenient data model which could take into account only the relevant information for air quality legislation compliance, namely the new air quality Directive (CAFE) under the INSPIRE system. Hence, GIS plays an important role because of the large amount of geographical data needed in the decision making within the national air quality assessment.

Keywords

air quality assessment, INSPIRE, CAFE Directive, GIS