Implementation and Management Approach

Before the AirAware project, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Bucharest was in charge of monitoring the air quality. The technology at hand however only allowed for the monitoring of street levels, which is not enough to give accurate information about higher spheres and it does not suffice to make usable forecasts. So before National Meteorological Administration took the task they started acquiring new equipment, and made surveys to find out about the major sources of pollution. Accordingly, "the main source of pollution [in the past years] has shifted from heavy industries, which are the legacy of the Communist times, to traffic", explains Vasile Craciunescu, technical manager of AirAware. The number of cars has increased dramatically, making it the biggest pollution problem in Bucharest. After finding out about the sources of pollution the NMA set up the monitoring system in 2006, which is fairly advanced, even compared to the European standard. With the new system, which was fully functional in early 2008, the NMA was able to give detailed information about higher levels of pollution (above the street level), which is very important in indicating the pollution of a greater area. The other important innovation was the ability to forecast, which was previously impossible. Although forecasting is not considered a guideline for the city administration, as this is the case in France for example, it is important for many of the partner institution, and may be important for the city planners in the future.

Technology solution

For end users the system does not appear as a complex network of data streams and numbers, but is presented neatly on a website using graphical interfaces that comprise all the information acquired in the above flow chart. This can be accessed either via the web or desktop client. For the building and the administration of the website, only open source software was used, which helped in keeping development and maintenance cost at a very economic level, while offering at the same time modularity, security, and supplier independence. To just name some solutions that have been applied, the content management system (CMS) is based on Textpattern , which is freely available under GPL license. The same is true for the relational database management system MySQL and the scripting languages used: PHP, Python, and Java. The web server Apache, with the Apache Tomcat running as the servlet container for Java code to run.

For the management of the geospatial data, the system relies on PostgreSQL and the extension PostGIS as geospatial enabled data base storage. The server is Geoserver, which is a Java based standard geospatial server, that serves that data to the partner's thick (desktop) and thin (web-based) clients.
However, not all of the projects outcomes will be freely available. The 'pollution forecasting model' for example, is very complex and mathematical and intricate to produce. The NMA is working together closely with Meteo France, which is one of few institution capable of providing such models. As opposed to common software solutions, the forecasting models are only produced on demand and customized uniquely for a respective institution. Since such a production involves Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that belongs to Meteo France, a sharing of these models is consequently not possible.