2010 International Conference on Science and Social Research (CSSR 2010), December 5 - 7, 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2010 CSSR 2010 Initial Submission

Air Quality Monitoring Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies

Rohayu Haron Narashid Wan Mohd Naim Wan Mohd Universiti Teknologi MARA
Abstract Air quality monitoring is needed to control air pollution in urban areas. A limited number of air quality monitoring stations limits the initial strategy of pollution prevention program in Malaysia especially at micro-scale level. Existing technique used to monitor air quality involves manually measured pollution concentrations within the area of measuring station. New technique which integrates satellite remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) by the authors can be used to continually monitor air quality at micro-scale level. Images from Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and eight (8) Continuous Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAQM) data are used to determine the relationship between digital number (DN) of the thermal infrared band and the two (2) air pollutant parameters, i.e. Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Particulate Maters (particle less than 10 microns in size PM10). A number of models have been developed by the authors to relate the DN of Landsat 7 ETM+ and the air pollutant parameters. Since there are limited numbers of CAQM stations available, the concept of virtual stations is introduced to densify CAQM stations. Based on these stations, kriging interpolation method (available in GIS software) is used to generate the air quality maps of the study area. The advantage of this method is it allows a more detailed assessment of air quality within urban areas with limited CAQM stations. Maps of pollution concentration generated from virtual stations using kriging interpolation method produce a more realistic distribution of air pollution. The concentration of CO and PM10 are highest in the industrial zones of the study area (Shah Alam). This method can be used by environmental managers and local authorities to continually monitor air quality in urban areas. KeywordsAir Quality, Remote Sensing, GIS, Virtual Air Quality Stations

Therefore, air quality monitoring is needed to control air pollution in urban areas. Department of Environment (DOE) is responsible for air quality monitoring in the country since 1975. Networks of air quality measuring instruments have been established in major cities comprising a few measuring stations. The program to monitor air quality in Malaysia was privatized to Alam Sekitar Sdn Bhd (ASMA) since April 1975. Currently, ASMA operates and maintains a network of 51 Continuous Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM) Stations for the Department of Environment (DOE) [5]. Within the Klang Valley Region, there are only six (6) Continuous Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM) stations. (Refer to Fig. 1)

Figure 1.

Location of CAQM Stations

Source : Alam Sekitar Malaysia Sdn Bhd (2005)

I. INTRODUCTION Air pollution, particularly in urban areas, has strong impact upon our daily life. Over the past 20 years, Malaysia has experienced rapid economic development that caused pollution especially in the urban and industrial areas. Activities such as setting up of industrial estates, free trade zones, thermal power plants, petroleum and agro-based industries have become more prominent in these area. Attention has been focused on the Klang Valley as it is considered to be the most industrialized area in terms of industrial operations and other anthropogenic activities [12]. The air pollution in the Klang Valley has become a serious concern particularly when it is recognized that it has a high potential for air pollution because of its inherent topography [20]. Studies by DOE and Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have found that traffic, industries and open burning contributed to high level of particulates in the Klang Valley Region, [10] & [11].

There are many earlier studies related to the use of remote sensing and GIS techniques for air quality monitoring. Examples of such studies can be found in [2], [4], [23], [24] and [26]. Satellite remote sensing method has many advantages of monitoring air quality at micro-scale level [27]. Satellite observations can provide a complete survey of the city; show the major sources of pollution and the distribution pattern; assist in determining where the effort should be focused to decrease the level of pollution and determine any relationship between the city features and the air pollution distribution. Other studies that revealed the possibility of establishing relationships between the air pollution and satellite images can be found in [1], [16] and [25]. Geographical Information System (GIS) are increasingly being used for inventory, analysis, understanding, modelling and management of the natural environment GIS-based approach to estimates pollutants by statistical interpolation method have been found in [9], [10], [11] and [24]. The GIS statistical interpolations method also used to generate virtual stations[25]. It is carried out by combining thin plate spline method of geographical database and remotely sensed data provided by the LANDSAT Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor. Virtual stations provide additional measurements as the input parameters for further interpolation and extrapolation

978-1-4244-8986-2/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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methods. A study conducted by [6] has also utilize the method of virtual densification of the network of permanent measuring stations by creating the method of virtual measuring stations. The aim is to improve the quality of interpolation (i.e. thin plate spline) by increasing the number of data on pollutant concentration. At present, the monitoring of air quality in Malaysia is based on ground measurement of CAQM stations. The ground instruments are designed to monitor specific pollutants (e.g. CO and PM10) and these instruments cannot provide description of the total concentration of all pollutants at micro-scale level. [1] has proved the relationship between ground-truth measurements of haze API (Air Pollution Index) and satellite reflectance of Band 1 of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. There is strong correlation between the spectral reflectance of NOAA AVHRR and individual haze component namely Particulate Matter with less that 10 micron size (PM10), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Ozone (O3). Until recently there is no related research on the use of high-resolution satellite images such as Landsat, SPOT or high-resolution hyperspectral images to monitor air quality of urban areas in Malaysia. The aim of this project is to explore the potential use of satellite remote sensing (Landsat 7 ETM+) and GIS techniques to monitor air quality at microscale area. The main objectives of this research are i) to determine the relationship between Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite spectral reflectance and air quality parameters ii) to map and analyze CO and PM10 concentrations of the selected study areas. II. METHODOLOGY The methodology of this research can be divided into four (4) important phases i.e. (i) selection of study areas, (ii) data acquisition, (iii) preliminary data processing, and (iv) data analysis. (Refer to Fig. 2) A. Selection of Study Area The study areas of this research comprise of three (3) areas i.e the whole of Klang Valley Region, the Klang Valley Region to part of Negeri Sembilan and part of Shah Alam City. The selection of these study areas are due to the availability of air quality data for CAQM stations and satellite images of the study areas. These areas are also selected because they are considered as the most polluted areas due to traffic combustion, industrial and development activities. Fig 3 shows the selected study areas of this project. There are eight (8) CAQM stations (available at that time) located within the study areas; six (6) CAQM stations at Study Area I, two (2) CAQM stations at Study Area II and one (1) CAQM station within Study Area I. Locations of these CAQM station are later used as station identifier (ID) to perform regression analysis.

Figure 2. Research Methodology

Figure 3. Selected Study Areas

B. Data Acquisition The second phase involves data acquisition. Data used in this research consists of Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images, air pollutants data of CAQM stations and ancillary data. Landsat 7 ETM+ satellite images of three (3) different dates are the main datasets used in this study i.e. 15th July 2000, 31st May 2001 and 20th September 2001. The air quality data consists of two (2) components of pollutants i.e., CO and PM10. The ancillary data for this research are GIS datasets. The GIS datasets include topographic maps at 1: 50,000 scale, locations of CAQM stations (refer to Fig. 4) and digital data layers of roads, boundaries and buildings of the study area/s.

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C. Preliminary Data Processing In this research, the main step in the preliminary data processing is DN extraction of several bands for CAQM stations. This step is used to obtain the DN combination of the CAQM stations, and later to find other points with similar DN. The DN of Landsat 7 ETM+ (i.e. thermal infrared band and band 1, 2 and 3) is extracted based on the pixel location of CAQM stations. To extract DN for the eight (8) CAQM stations i.e. Kuala Lumpur, Gombak, Kajang, Klang, Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Nilai and Seremban, the images are overlaid onto GIS layer of the study area. (Refer to Fig. 4) The purpose of DN extraction is to obtain the initial virtual air quality stations. The initial virtual air quality stations are the points with DN combination that are similar to a particular CAQM station. After the DN is extracted, the map query analysis in the ArcView 3.2 is used to complete this task. The expected numbers of initial virtual stations are 150 to 200.
Figure 5. Identification of Virtual Air Quality Stations

TABLE I.

CAQM STATION IDENTIFICATION

Figure 4. Locations of CAQM Stations

ID A B C D E F G H

Location of CAQM stations Kuala Lumpur Gombak Klang Petaling Jaya Shah Alam Kajang Nilai Seremban

D. Data Analysis To identify virtual air quality stations, ground verification on the initial virtual stations is carried out. Fig. 5 shows the identification of virtual air quality stations. The main criteria for selecting these stations are i) point with the same spectral reflectance or DN of the CAQM stations, ii) point with the same surrounding features (land use/landform) as the CAQM stations and iii) a minimum of four (4) stations within an area of 2.5 km2 [22]. Ground observation is carried out within the Study Area III to identify stations or locations that comply with the three (3) criteria given above. The location or coordinates of virtual station are recorded with handheld GPS. For new virtual stations, which have the same properties as KL CAQM station, an initial identification is given as A. Initial identification for other stations is given in Table 1. The second and third character indicates the date of the image is acquired while the last two characters denote the station number (examples A1501, A1502 and A1503). It can be anticipated that there would be more than 50 virtual stations obtained from map query operation.

III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS In data analysis, three (3) important tasks are carried out: A. Regression analysis, B. Identification of final virtual air quality monitoring stations and C. Production of air quality maps of the study areas. A. Regression Analysis Based on the results presented in Table 3, the stronger correlation is between DN and CO as compared to correlation between DN and PM10. Strong correlation between DN of thermal IR band of Landsat 7 ETM+ and pollutants (i.e. CO and PM10) can clearly be observed for only one of the images used (i.e. 15th July 2000). The best regression between DN and the 6-station CAQM configuration based on image acquired on the 15th July 2000 is chosen as the optimum model to get the value of pollutants from virtual stations. There are six (6) CAQM stations available in the Klang Valley Region.
TABLE II. CORRELATION BETWEEN DN AND POLLUTANTS

CAQM Data CO (mg/m3) PM10(mg/m3)

15-Jul-00 0.888 0.766

31-May-01 0.266 0.843

20-Sep-01 0.434 0.104

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TABLE III. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DN AND POLLUTANTS BASED ON IMAGE ACQUIRED ON 15TH JULY 2000

Fig. 6 graphically shows the regression analysis between DN and pollutant concentration based on 6-CAQM stations configuration (i.e. Kuala Lumpur, Gombak, Kajang, Klang, Nilai and Seremban stations). The regression between DN of LANDSAT thermal IR band against two (2) types of pollutants (i.e. CO, and PM10) have shown that DN is positively correlated to pollutants parameters.
Figure 7. Distribution of 148 Virtual Stations

After ground verification is carried out, the number of virtual stations is reduced from 148 to 57 stations. Fig. 8 shows the distribution of the 57 virtual stations selected based on the three (3) criteria mentioned earlier.

(a)

(b) Figure 6. Relationship between DN and Air Quality Parameters (a) CO (b) PM10

B. Identification of Virtual Air Quality Stations Virtual stations are obtained from map query analysis with the pollutant values derived from the regression analysis. The combination of Band 1, Band 2 and Band 3 of LANDSAT 7 ETM+ produced 148 virtual stations within Study Area III (i.e. Shah Alam City). Fig. 7 shows the locations of 148 virtual stations that are superimposed onto satellite image. The distributions of virtual station are more concentrated within industrial and residential areas. No virtual station is located within the forested area.

Figure 8. Distribution of the 57 Virtual Stations

C. Production of Air Quality Map of Study Area The map of pollutant concentrations is obtained from kriging interpolation method of the CAQM stations (refer to Fig. 9) and virtual stations (refer to Fig.10 and Fig.11). The geostatistical techniques available in ArcGIS 9.1 software are used to generate pollutant concentration maps based on virtual stations.

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IV. CONCLUSION Generally, the work presented in this research shows that the integration of remote sensing technology and GIS techniques (kriging interpolation method) can be used to monitor the pollutant concentration in the air. Satellite-based image provide a low-cost means of producing air quality map of an area (especially at micro-scale level). The strong correlation that exists between DN and pollutants has demonstrates the possibility of using the thermal infrared band of Landsat 7 ETM+ to determine the relationship between satellite measurements and air quality parameters. Furthermore, the introduction of virtual stations gives a more realistic distribution pattern of the pollutants. Finding from this project have shown that satellite remote sensing and GIS methods can potentially be used by environmental manager and local authorities to continually monitor air quality (at micro-scale) of urban areas. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Alam Sekitar Malaysia Sdn Bhd (ASMA) and National Remote Sensing Agency for providing necessary data required for this research.

Figure 9. Maps of Pollutants Concentration in the Klang Valley Region using only six (6) CAQM Stations

i)

CO Concentration
[1]

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Figure 10. Pollutants Concentrations (CO) Generated from a) 148 and b) 57 Virtual Stations

ii)

PM10 Concentration

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Figure 11. Pollutants Concentrations (PM10) Generated from a) 148 and b) 57 Virtual Stations

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