Air Quality Forecasts for China28/07/2008 |
| With less than a month remaining before the Beijing Olympics, Chinese officials have introduced a series of measures to improve air quality for the Olympic Games. A new tool has been installed in the capital city to allow the Chinese to monitor the effectiveness of these efforts. Poor air quality could pose problems for the Olympic athletes and hinder the performance of those competing outdoors in endurance sports, such as cycling and marathons. |
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Since the main source of air pollution in the Beijing urban area is vehicle emissions, restrictions on car traffic began on 20th July in order to take 50 percent of Beijing's 3,5 million vehicles off the road. From then until 20th September, private vehicles will only be allowed to drive on alternating days and cars with high emissions will be banned.
On behalf of ESA, CERC (Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants) installed a High Resolution Air Quality Forecasting System at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau that allows Chinese authorities to monitor the effect these cuts have on street level air quality. Thanks to this new tool, operational street scale air quality forecasts for Beijing have been generated since 8th July - exactly one month before the Games' opening ceremony.
Three-day forecasts are posted daily and are accessible on the Beijing Air Quality website. The forecasts are high-resolution pollution contour maps that predict levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particles and sulphur dioxide for each of Beijing's eight districts. Users can choose to view maps of each pollutant separately or to view the total health index with all pollutants combined. The three-day advanced forecasts are made available as part of the Dragon-2 Programme, a joint undertaking between ESA and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China designed to encourage increased exploitation of ESA and Chinese Earth Observation satellite data within China.
Caption: BeijingAir street-scale air quality forecast for Beijing for 22 July 2008. Read more about: China maps satellite earth observationWebsite: http://www.beijingairquality.cn/ Supplier: 0 More news from this supplier: Forum GMES 2008 GOCE Earth Explorer Satellite Czech Republic Accedes to ESA Convention Space Agency Leaders Gather in Paris Procurement Galileo System Celebrating Ten Years of the International Space Station EarthCARE Satellite Contract Signed Berlin Air Show ILA2008 GIOVE-B Transmitting its First Signals ESA Launches Second Galileo Satellite New Speed Profiles in Navigation High-Resolution Satellite Imagery on TV ArcGIS Supports SQL Server 2008 Sokkia Topcon Updates Agreement for South Korea Maps NASA Satellites Capture Images of Southern California Wildfires Value of Satellites for Conserving Wetlands OGC Reference Model The House that Maps Built Mining Title Cadastre and Registry for Mongolia 
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