Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Facilitating Advanced Urban Meteorology
and Air Quality Modelling Capabilities with
High Resolution Urban Database and Access
Portal Tools
Jason Ching, Adel Hanna, Fei Chen, Steven Burian, and Torrin Hultgren
Abstract
Information on urban morphological features at high resolution is needed
to properly model and characterize the meteorological and air quality fields in
urban areas. Here a project called National Urban Database with Access Portal Tool
(NUDAPT) that addresses this need is described. NUDAPT is designed to produce
gridded fields of urban canopy parameters to improve urban meteorological simu-
lations. It makes use of the availability of high-resolution urban buildings and land
use data. An important core-design feature is the utilization of Portal technology to
enable NUDAPT to be a “Community” based system. Sensitivity studies showing
air quality simulations driven with outputs from urban meteorology preprocessors
using advanced urban descriptions are described.
1.1 Introduction
Current data and modelling tools are limited in their capability to perform accu-
rate air quality assessments in urban areas that contain highest and most vulnerable
population densities. Advanced treatments of high resolution urban morphological
features for meteorological, air quality and human exposure modelling systems will
be needed for future urban applications (OFCM 2005). In response, a project called
National Urban Database with Access Portal Tool (NUDAPT) was launched. The
initial NUDAPT prototype is sponsored by the United States Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (US EPA) and involves collaboration and contributions from many fed-
eral and state agencies, and from private and academic institutions. NUDAPT will
produce gridded outputs of urban parameters required for current (Otte et al., 2004;
Ching et al., 2004; Dupont et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2006) and future advanced urban
