To: Sponsors of Geospatial Architecture Implementation (AI) Pilot.
From: Rudolf Husar, Washington University, St. Louis Missouri, 63130
Subject: EPA/Washington University Response to AI Pilot CFP
Date: February 6, 2016
Atmospheric Composition/Air Quality Pilot
The responding organization is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with
Washington University is a private, coeducational, non-sectarian research university
located in St. Louis, Missouri.
Contact information:
Rudolf B. Husar, Professor and Director
Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA),
Washington University,
1 Brookings Drive, Box 1124
St. Louis, MO 63130 314 935 6099
rhusar@me.wustl.edu
Overview of EPA/Washington University Proposal for
OGC Geospatial Architecture Implementation Pilot CFP
Atmospheric Composition /Air Quality Pilot
This proposed Pilot is a collaborative effort that applies open standards for
interoperability to achieve improved understanding and management of atmospheric
composition /air quality (AQ). Outcomes of the Pilot will include best-practices for
accessing and sharing atmospheric data and interoperability arrangements for building
broadly applicable geospatial Decision Support Systems (DSS) for atmospheric
composition/air quality policy and management support.
The approach of this Pilot is to pursue an and-to-end approach of accessing and
harmonizing diverse/distributed AQ data, processing and integrating multi-sensory data
and providing decision support to actual decision makers. The Pilot is focused on the
application domain of atmospheric composition /air quality, which is relevant to the
GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas of Human Health and Disasters.
The specific content and the resources for this Pilot will be contributed by the
participating Agencies in the US (EPA, NASA, NOAA), European Union and by the
World Meteorological Organization. A key role is anticipated from our partners in OGC
current interoperability experiments (e.g. GALEON and GEOSS Services Network).
A formal commitment from the above organizations has not been secured. Washington
University is not in position to make financial commitments on its own. Some travel
funds for the meetings are currently available and participation in teleconferences and
other communication is planned. Based on our experience of the past 3-4 years,
participation and support for the proposed Pilot will be forthcoming from the stakeholder
agencies.
Background on AQ Pilot
Atmospheric Composition/Air quality data analysis requires considerable processing of raw
observational/model data before these can be used for decision-making processes. The main processing
operations are filtering, aggregation and fusion of multi-sensory data and/or models. The nature of the
analysis, i.e. the choice of data as well as the sequence of these operations is highly dependent on the users
needs. Hence, in an ideal data system, much of the analysis is to be performed by user-defined processing
chains, using a flexible and agile information system.
The data analysis through agile information system requires (1) seamless data access (2) reusable data
processing component to access, filter, aggregate, and fuse distributed data; (3) a service-oriented
framework that facilitates the publish-find-bind (chain) web service model for application building. Such
loose coupling can only be achieved if the service components adhere to strict standards-based protocols.
Achieving such loosely coupled service oriented architectures has been the stated goal of numerous
national and international Earth Science programs including the Global Observing System of Systems
(GEOSS)
The first step toward service oriented Earth Science information systems is the adaptation of strongly typed
standards for finding, describing, and accessing data. Given such standards-based interface, providers of
data and services can publish their data resources and users can find suitable data in formal catalogs. Most
importantly formal protocols allow snap-like binding i.e. data access, between the server and the client
operations. The publish-find-bind trilogy constitutes the basic operations that permit the building of agile,
loosely coupled systems through web service chaining.
Current Earth Science data systems do not yet allow such flexible, user-defined data processing. In
particular, standards for the description, query and transmission of multidimensional Fluid Earth Science
(air, water) data are lacking. However, considerable advances are being made in this direction. An
attractive development in this regard is the emergence and the broad acceptance of geospatial standards
coordinated internationally by Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). In the Earth Sciences similar
development led to a standard for binary-encoded Earth Science data, through the netCDF encoding,
augmented by the CF Conventions. The combination of these standards to develop seamless Earth Science
data flow is being pursued by several interoperability experiments (e.g. GALEON [3] and GEOSS Services
Network). Nevertheless, atmospheric analysts face significant hurdles, most notably the exponentially
growing “data deluge”.
DataFed, (Husar and Poirot, 2005) an infrastructure for real-time integration and web-based delivery of
distributed monitoring data. The federated data system, DataFed, (http://datafed.net) aims to support
atmospheric composition/air quality management and science by more effective use of relevant data [1] [2].
Building on the emerging pattern of the Internet itself, DataFed assumes that datasets and new data
processing services will continue to emerge spontaneously and be maintained autonomously on the
Internet.
Demonstration Scenario Development
The key contribution of this Pilot is to collaboratively develop application scenarios for
the testing and demonstrations of interoperable services. The scenarios will involve
considerable scientific and technical analysis, which is being conducted by the
collaborating project team. Two application scenarios are of particular interest to EPA:
(1) Impact of wild land fire smoke on atmospheric composition and human health; (2)
Intercontinental transport of atmospheric constituents.
An early demonstration was the scenarios was presented in July 2006 at the “User and the
GEOSS Architecture V – Denver workshop”. Which included a presentation
“Architectures and Technologies for Agile, User-Oriented Air Quality Data Systems” by
Rudolf Husar. Two application scenarios were also demonstrated:
Use Case - Realtime Smoke Event Analysis Screencast (5min) -(ppt slides)
Use Case - Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollutants Screencast (5min) -(ppt slides)
The scenario(s) for the proposed pilot will be developed following the above examples.
However, the specific scenario development will need to actively involve the key
national and international stakeholders in this Pilot. We are interested in participating in
the Pilot for the Wildfire Scenario by providing services (data access, processing,
portrayal and workflow) and the information architecture for smoke impact
analysis.
Component and Service Contributions
The federated data system, DataFed will contribute an array of web services for data
access, processing/portrayal and these are incorporated into decision-support client
applications.
See 20 selected datasets in the federated data systems, DataFed;
In DataFed, all the data access services follow the evolving OGC WCS or WMS standard
protocols.
Compliance with the standards is tested through participation in interoperability
experiments and demonstrations. The services will be registered in the appropriate
GEOSS Registries and accessible through the GEO Portal.
A partial list of SOAP services for the GEOSS Pilot is below and explained elsewhere.
DataFed Web Services
Service Types
Each web service is linked to its WSDL
Data Access
Processing
Rendering
DataType\View MAP
WCS
POINT
TIME
OTHER
WCS
WCS
GRID
IMAGE
UTILITY
TimeAggregate SpaceAggregate
RegionAggregate PeriodicAggregate
CyclicAggregate
TableOperator
TableOperator
TableOperator
GridMapPoint
RenderMapPoint RenderTimeCube RenderTable
WCS
WCS
WCS
TimeAggregate SpaceAggregate
CyclicAggregate
MapGridOperator MapGridOperator MapGridOperator
RenderMapGrid RenderTimeCube RenderTable
WCS
WMS
RenderMapImage
MapImageMargin TimeImageMargin
AnnotateImage AnnotateImage
AnnotateImage AnnotateImage
FormatConversion
The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) of DataFed allows, in principle, to build webapplications by connecting the web service components (e.g. services for data access,
transformation, fusion, rendering, etc.) in Lego-like assembly. The generic web-tools
created in this fashion include catalogs for data discovery, browsers for spatial-temporal
exploration, multi-view consoles, animators, multi-layer overlays, etc. A typical webservices program is shown below. It shows the service workflow chain for a multi-layer
display including satellite, trajectory and aerosol chemistry data layers.
Architecture and Interoperability Arrangement Development
The GEO general framework for turning Earth observations into societal benefits is
shown below. The three main components of this architecture are models, and
observations, which feed into decision support systems for a variety of societal decision
making processes. However, it is void of specific guidelines and details that are needed
for application areas
The Pilot will provides an opportunity to apply and extend the GEO generic architectural
framework. Developing a higher resolution framework for air quality DSS is an
important task because it can guide the design and implementation of the supporting
information system. Furthermore, the detailed DSS architectural map may also serve as a
communications channel for the interacting system of systems components. The insights
gained in developing this Pilot may also help the design in similar applications. The
general sequence of operations on an atmospheric composition data stream is shown
below.
Description of Washington University
From Wikipedia: Washington University in St. Louis is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian research university located in St. Louis, Missouri. The University was cofounded in 1853 and offered its first four-year Bachelor of Arts degree in 1859. The
University includes 7 graduate and undergraduate schools[7], encompassing a broad range
of academic fields. In the 2007 U.S. News & World Report rankings, its undergraduate
program is ranked 12th in the US. Washington University has an active Engineering
program which includes Geospatial Environmental Research and numerous
collaborations on geospatial interoperability as part of OGC, GEOSS and bilateral
arrangements. Washington University is a member of OGC since 2003.
REFERENCES
[1]
Husar, R.B. and R.; Poirot: DataFed and Fastnet: Tools for Agile Air Quality Analysis;
Environmental Manager 2005, September, 39-41 (pdf)
[2]
Husar, R.B. S. R. Falke and K. Hoijarvi: Interoperability of Web Service-Based Data Access and
Processing: Experience Using the DataFed System. ESTO Meeting, 2006, Paper A6P2
[3]
Domenico B. et. al: GALEON: Standards-based Web Services for Interoperability among Earth
Sciences Data Systems. IEEE International Conference on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium,
2006. IGARSS 2006.