Geospatial Standards for Web-enabled Environmental Models

Serving geographic information via standardized Web services has been widely accepted as a useful approach. Web-enabled environmental models simulating real-world phenomena are, however, rare. The models predict observations traditionally served by geospatial Web services compliant to well-defined standards. Using standardized Web services could support decoupling of models, comparison of similar models, and the automatic integration into existing geospatial workflows. Modeling experts face several open issues when migrating existing environmental computer models to the Web. The selection of the Web service interface depends on the input parameters required for the successful execution of the computer model. Losing control over the execution of the models, and consequently also the confidence in model results, can be addressed to a certain extent by using translucent and standardized workflow languages. Mechanisms and open problems for the implementation of geospatial Web service compositions are discussed. Two scenarios about oil spills and the exposure to air pollution illustrate the impact of unconfigured model parameters for standard-compliant spatial data clients

Disaggregating gridded air quality data for individual exposure modelling

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of disaggregation for PM10 pollution from a grid to point support for exposure modelling on a GPS track representing an individual space-time trajectory. Different sets of explanatory variables were tested to predict spatial variability of mobile PM10 measurements at the point support. Disaggregation was performed using unconditional Gaussian simulation. The results show a considerable amount of uncertainty added due to disaggregation that depends in strength on the auxiliary data set used for prediction. Subsequent aggregation over the GPS track leads to a reduction in uncertainties