Air Quality Decision Support Example:

Justification and Granting of

Exceptional Event Status

Exceptional Event Regulatory Status• Natural events such as forest fire smoke and wind blown dust are be exempt from air quality standards compliance. • State AQ control agencies can petition exemptions from the federal EPA for the those exceptional days. • However, they are required to provide sufficient justification that the event was indeed caused by sources beyond their

control. • Decision Making: Based on the ‘weight of evidence’ provided by the states, the federal EPA decides if the requested

waiver is justified.• Both the states and the EPA can use observational and modeling data from a broad range of sources to justify their

actions.

State AQ Agency

Internet

Federal EPA

Petition Decision

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Internet

Exceptional Event AQ Warning and Forecast• By law, state agencies are required to issue advisories to the public when unhealthy

air quality conditions are anticipated. • Forest fire smoke and wind blown dust can produce such conditions. • Based on real-time monitoring of the air quality situation, the DSS monitors the

appearance of and forecasts the evolution of potentially harmful events. • Decisions by States: Issuing the warning and forecast. (where, when, what

emergency)• Decisions By Public: How to respond (asthmatics, recreation, etc.)

Canadian Smoke EventsBased on real-time satellite observations (MODIS, GOES), around July 1, 2006

Canadian smoke impacted the Midwest for several days.

June 27, 2006 July 6, 2006

MODIS

GOES

MODIS

GOES

Smoke

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Decision Systems Impacted by Smoke

Decisions DSS Operator

Issue air quality health warning States

Approve exceptional event status EPA

Issue air transportation warning FAA

Issue weather advisory NOAA

Canadian Smoke Events

• Monitoring: Jane monitors the AQ situation looks at indicators through console

• Event Detection: Jane detects an event and takes a “closer look” (space, time and sensing parameters)

• Characterization: An “event team” characterizes the event based on all the available sensory and model data.

• Event Triggers: If warranted trigger messages are sent to the relevant decision systems.

• Characterization-Decision-Action Loop: The characterization and decision teams interact to and create an agile decision support system.