Development of air quality management system for the Las Vegas valley

After the 9-1-1, air quality data acquisition becomes critical for homeland security protection. Any air-borne pollutants can be further hypothesized as fatal toxic gases released by terrorists. Department of Air Quality Management at Clark County of Nevada has long-term air quality monitoring program with 30 monitoring stations around the valley. Existing stations were not designed to process large data set with varied time frame. The Nevada Center for Advanced Computational Methods at University of Nevada-Las Vegas proposed a new data management system design. The objective is to demonstrate the capability of the newly designed system. The innovated system has the characteristics of scalability, flexibility and ease of maintenance. A four-tier system, acquisition, repository, processing and presentation, was defined. Microsoft Database Engine and National Instruments' acquisition modules were implemented on all stations while the main control center equips SQL Server and acquisition modules. The web-based management includes near real-time and historical data associated with monitoring station information. Analysis tier is connecting to a micro-scale simulation model that calculates 3-D wind field around the valley. Collected data can continuously feed into the system for simulating chemical/nuclear spilling. Such system demonstration will provide an invaluable decision-making tool for national-wide emergency response system.