Inform Locally, Transmit GloballyOne County’s Efforts to Manage Data

Jennifer Bradley & Rebecca PeltzerPolk County-Air QualitySteve Drevik, Agilaire

Why go digital?

“Within a generation or two, the world will move from a primarily analog-augmented existence to a digitally-dependent one.”

Cynthia WareConsultant for Online Technologies and Communication

Our Multi-Pollutant SiteOur Analyzers:2 Model 8832 data loggers2 collocated 49i Ozone1 43i-TLE SO21 48i-TLE CO1 42i NOx2 collocated PM2.5 BAM-1020 Meterological Station

Site is polled over private LAN connection inside the firewall.

Agilaire’s AirVision Software maintains all digital and analog data

How Far We’ve Come• All Thermo i-Series connected

digitally via Ethernet/Modbus– Digital concentrations– Metadata

• Collocated BAMs connected digitally via Terminal Server/Direct Instrument Poll– No more worries about hourly

data shift– No more worries about 1 ug/m3

data error

• We have the highest quality, error checked, digital data updated hourly at our finger tips……Now What?

We already have a well established Web site in place, but……

• Our Web team was very concerned about switching databases from E-Das Ambient to AirVision

• We’ve never been happy with our Real-time Data Display

Try to find off-the-shelf solution from vendor?

AgileWeb CapabilitiesAgileWeb appears to be a ‘plug and play’ web site solution, promised to be easy to set up

Initial page allows us to use any kind of image file as a background map, and locate sites within that image

Boxes show current AQI, with mouse roll-over to show responsible pollutant and concentration value

AQI legend box automatically appears in corner, can be relocated if needed

When you click on a box……..

AgileWeb CapabilitiesA web site user can drill down to an individual site, see hour by hour:

-AQI -Responsible pollutant -Health warnings

‘Admin’ section allows a forecaster to go through the web page and enter forecasts, without access privileges to our main AirVision DAS application!

AgileWeb CapabilitiesData History page allows web site users to query historical data in a variety of forms:

- HTML table- CSV download- Excel download- Time-series graph- AQS text or XML output

Source code is provided so we can modify the site and control if we want to

Our Deployment Experience http://www.polkcountyiowa.gov/airquality/pages/CurrentAQI_New.aspx

• Monitored parameters are shown • Image of the site can be displayed• Site address/description can be added

Our New Real-Time/Historical Data Display

Checkboxes in AirVision allow us to hide desired parameters from the web site (e.g., analyzer diagnostics, shelter temp, etc)

Parameter Templates in AirVision allow us to:-Designate ranges of graphs-Determine how parameter names are displayed

Ties directly into existing AirVision System, requiring minimal setup/configuration→ Our web team is very happy!

Suggestions For Others• Verify that parameter and unit codes in AQI Program Editor• Check the ozone surrogate / Conroy estimate settings• Determine AQI Averaging Method• Determine your Activity Caution/Risk Group message-Pollutant Specific

Suggestions For OthersUse AirVision’s Data Conversion

feature:

Don’t be discouraged if you’re not San Diego County

Desired EnhancementsEven though the site is full-featured, we wanted a few tweaks, and Agilaire is working with us and other AgileWeb users on several improvements, including:

- Option to show all pollutant AQIs, rather than just the highest- need to still have ozone historical data available during non-ozone season

→ need option besides - Currently, old void codes (9998) are included as concentrations in graphs?

XML and AIRNow

Currently, there are actions in place to modernize the process and formats for XML and AIRNow submissions

While we all use the old “pipe” format for AQS, the desire is to move AQS to XML submissions only

Similarly, last year we learned that AIRNow wanted to move from the old “OBS” format to a new AQSCSV format

AirVision Server

AIRNow AQS

OBS?

CSV?

Pipe-TXT?

XML?

Quick XML PrimerXML uses a series of ‘tags’ to identify exactly what embedded data is, so you don’t have to go to another document to find out what’s in column 8, 9, 16, etc

It also makes XML files self-documenting, so displaying them on a web page or in a viewer easier

The list of allowed tags defines the schema. EPA and Exchange Network have defined schemas for AQS

Because of the additional tags, XML files can be 10x to 50x bigger than a comparable delimited file

XML and AIRNow

Currently, these changes are just strong recommendations/desires.

However, technology must eventually move forward.

Fortunately, AirVision - already provides for

XML 2.x submissions- an option is available to easily add an

AQSCSV reporting module

XML vs. AQSCSVAt the 2010 AQS conference, things got a bit confusing.

A new XML schema (2.2) offers headers that would allow it to be used as a real-time submission system as well

As it turns out, several states have been doing this for several years using XML

If XML is more extensible and modern than CSV, does it have technical merits and would it eventually be a better future standard?

AirVision Server

AQS AIRNow

XML 2.2

XML vs. AQSCSVPros: More extensible Integrates well into Exchange Network AirVision has XN plug-in for XML queries, while AQSCSV is optional and

might need to be funded by grant

Cons: XML files are bigger (but they can be compressed) XML files are harder to open and understand when troubleshooting Web services transfer is a little more confusing to us non-network people

than FTP, which we have used for years.

What to do, what to do?It’s easy to sit tight for now -OBS is still supported:

We can experiment with XML submissions to AQS, while the ‘pipe’ format is still available.

AQSCSV can be easily implemented, if needed.

We need to work with our state XN node administrator to find out how we might utilize XML transfer, and all vendors still have some work to implement the new Version 2.2 schema and headers

AirVision Server

AIRNow AQS

OBS?Pipe-TXT?

XML?

Stay TunedWe are on a solid software platform that gives us plenty of options and choices- we just have to figure out what works best for us and our agency.

We hope to have our final approach defined and implemented by the same time next year, and we look forward to sharing our experiences, challenges, and solutions with everyone, like we have with our web site.

Our web site address:www.polkcountyiowa.gov/airquality/pages/CurrentAQI_New.aspx