Improving Air Pollution Monitoring and Management of Vietnam With Satellite Observation

Project Information

Title of Project: Improving air pollution monitoring and management of Vietnam with satellite PM2.5 observation

Sector: Air Pollution

Country: Vietnam

Lead Institution:  University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University (VNU UET)  

Co-PI Institution:  University of Maryland College Park (UMCP)

Partner(s): Live & Learn for Environment and Community (VN Live & Learn)

Final Budget:    $165,321.75

Project Length: 2 years

Research Objective:

Air pollution is considered an urgent problem in Vietnam as a result of remarkable economic development and urbanization as well as effects of regional transportation. Among air pollution problems in Vietnam, fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) pollution is currently one of the most alarming, with multiple negative impacts on public health. In Vietnam, PM2.5 monitoring has been conducted by local and national governmental organizations, and others such as the US embassy, French Embassy, etc. Despite the immense effort put into monitoring air quality, both the government-controlled and the private-sector company monitoring systems are still inadequate in giving a complete picture of air pollution at a national scale. Furthermore, monitoring data is still limited in distribution, meanwhile air pollution reports remain sparsely published. On the other hand, satellite technology is considered a more modern and expansive approach to providing daily air pollution monitoring solutions from global to local scale. With experiences in researching and developing the various applications of satellite images in recent years, we aim to utilize our knowledge and our findings to achieve three following objectives in this project: (i) Supplementing PM2.5 monitoring at a national scale; (ii) Developing products to provide insight into the status of PM2.5 concentration across the country to communities in different forms, such as annual report on PM2.5 pollution in Vietnam, a WebGIS for daily PM2.5 visualization, and educational videos; (iii) Promoting and disseminating research translation products to end-users.

Project Description

This project is composed of three work packages:

Work package 1 (WP1) is to develop PM2.5 maps from satellite data, ground measurements and auxiliary maps to supplement PM2.5 monitoring at country-wide: In this work package, daily PM2.5 concentration maps will be generated with nationwide coverage at a resolution of 3 km x 3 km using the Mixed Effect Model (MEM) which describes the relationship between the ground-based measurements of PM2.5 with specific factors, such as satellite Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), meteorology, and other land use data layers. Products of this work package should be suitable for monitoring PM2.5 at the province/city level in Vietnam.

Work package 2 (WP2) focuses on developing applications to provide status of PM2.5 concentrations across the country to communities in different forms, such as an annual reports, education videos, and a WebGIS system:

The first product of this package is an annual report on the state of PM2.5 pollution, using multi-source dataset such as satellites, stationary monitoring stations, low-cost sensor stations and applying spatial and temporal analysis techniques for PM2.5 data with other factors to ensure up-to-date and multidimensional perspectives for the Vietnam air pollution situation. The report is critical and meets the urgent need of information for air pollution monitoring and management in Vietnam. The report will describe in detail an overview of PM2.5 pollution in Vietnam at a national scale, the characteristics of PM2.5  pollution at the regional scale and the state of PM2.5 pollution in Vietnam’s two large cities: Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The second product will be two educational videos encapsulating the results of the aforementioned report as well the whole project, providing visual explanation to the current state of air pollution in Vietnam to the public and practitioners which might not necessarily be by experts on the subject matter. Videos will give recommendations for individual actions that people can do to improve air quality. Videos will have captions and subtitles as well.

The third product of this package is a WebGIS to monitor the average daily PM2.5 concentration over Vietnam. The purpose of this system will be to provide Near Real Time (NRT) PM2.5 concentration data, especially to areas that lack on-ground PM2.5 observation. This will serve as supplementary data to government websites. The main functions of the system will include: (i) visualization of PM2.5 data in Vietnam, (ii) daily reports of PM2.5 pollution and ranking among different regions, (iii) a search tool for data of preferred time, location and type, (iv) warning/alarm of polluted areas, (v) annual report viewer for people to view and download the annual report on the state of PM2.5 pollution in Vietnam. Other backend automatic functions will include: (i) data collection and preprocessing, (i) PM2.5 map estimation, (iii) data management and (iv) user administration.

Work package 3 is to dissemination of translation products and technology transfer to end-users

As for the diversity of users, from scientists to citizens and policy makers, different conferences and training workshops will be organized to introduce each translation product to main target users.

Embedded Research Translation Product: The ERT products of this project are as followed: (i) daily PM2.5 concentration maps, (ii) An annual report on the state of PM2.5 pollution in Vietnam, (iii) educational videos, (iv) a WebGIS providing NRT PM2.5 observation in Vietnam. 

Embedded Research Translation Audience: (i) the public, (ii) environmental management agencies, (iii) researchers.

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