EnviroInfo 2004: DEM-AQ: Data Exchange Module for Air Quality data

EnviroInfo 2004 (Geneva) 

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Copyright © Editions du Tricorne 2004. ISBN: 28 29 30 275-3 

DEM-AQ: Data Exchange Module for Air Quality 

data 

Wim Mol 1 

Abstract 

Since 1998 the European Topic Centre for Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC 2 ) 

and its predecessor the European Topic Centre on Air Quality has placed the DEM- 

AQ (Data Exchange Module for Air Quality Data) at the disposal of air quality data 

suppliers. The DEM-AQ is a tool for data exchange between countries supplying air 

quality data and the European central database for air quality data: AIRBASE. 

The DEM-AQ supports collection of air quality data and associated meta data required 

by the various legal and moral obligations. These obligations are: Council 

Decision 97/101/EC (‘Exchange of Information’, (EoI)), EEA-EuroAirnet programme 

and EMEP Task Force on Measurement and Modelling (TFMM). 

1. History 

Based on a review of the old Exchange of Information (EoI) databases APIS and 

GIRAFE, experience of data suppliers, the EoI Decision (97/101/EC), and the EEA 

data needs, it was recommended by the EEA in 1995 to develop a new air quality 

information system. Under the yearly EEA subventions, the then ETC-AQ started in 

close collaboration with the Directorate General Environment of the European 

Commission (DGEnv) and EEA with the development of the new system called 

AIRBASE. The objective of the AIRBASE information system was formulated as: 

1 European Topic Center for Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC) 

RIVM, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment 

P.O. Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, the Netherlands 

Tel. +31 30 274 2378, Fax. +31 30 274 4433, email: wim.mol@rivm.nl 

http://etc-acc.eionet.eu.int/ 

2 The European Topic Center for Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC) ia a consortium of 

European institutes (RIVM, UBA-B, UBA-V, IIASA, NILU, AEAT, AUTh, CHMI, DNMI, 

NTUA, ÖKO, UEA, IEP, TNO) under contract of the European Environmental Agency 

(EEA). 

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Offering the facilities needed to collect, validate, evaluate, store and visualise raw 

air quality data and statistics and (meta) information on air quality monitoring networks 

and stations, and making these data available on different aggregated levels, 

for different information users and through different distribution channels. 

AIRBASE is at the service of different target groups: experts, policy makers and the 

general public. 

The DEM-AQ was implemented to load AIRBASE with air quality information. 

The first version of the DEM-AQ was released in 1998. The software is used to exchange 

air quality data (raw data, statistics and ozone exceedances) and meta information 

on operational air quality networks, stations and measurement configurations 

in the framework of the EoI Council Decision 97/101/EC, the EEA-EuroAirnet 

programme and the EMEP Task Force on Measurement and Modelling (TFMM). 

With the DEM-AQ the data supplier can add, modify and delete meta information 

on air quality networks, stations and measurement configurations. The data supplier 

can also import data files with extensive error checking. The DEM-AQ supports also 

visualisation of the imported data and the transmission of the data for incorporation 

in AIRBASE. Yearly the DEM-AQ is pre-loaded with all the meta information contained 

in AIRBASE and is send to the data suppliers and the data suppliers load the 

DEM-AQ again with the data of the last year. The DEM-AQ is used by almost 30 

counties: the EU Member States, EU-Accession countries, EFTA states and some 

other European countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and FYROM (Former 

Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia). 

AIRBASE now contains air quality data of more than 30 European countries, almost 

40 air quality parameters, 370 networks, 4000 stations and and more than 

15000 time series. AIRBASE has be made available to the public on Internet via the 

ETC/ACC Web site 3 (Mol 2003). 

2. Structure AIRBASE information System 

AIRBASE is an Ingres RDBMS running on UNIX. Later on in 2004 AIRBASE will be 

converted in Oracle. Because the DEM-AQ (Access database) has the same datamodel 

as AIRBASE, the DEM-AQ can be populated with all available meta 

information on AQ networks, stations and measurement configurations including 

info on available time series from AIRBASE. The preloaded DEM-AQ is transmitted 

to the data suppliers in the countries. The complete data flow can be followed in 

Figure 1. The data supplier checks the meta information by adding, modifying or 

deleting the meta data and imports the raw measurement data through several formats 

of import files. The imported files are checked automatically by the DEM-AQ. 

3 http://etc-acc.eionet.eu.int/databases/airview.html 

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Copyright © Editions du Tricorne 2004. ISBN: 28 29 30 275-3

Figure 1 

The data flow from data supplier to AIRBASE and EBAS. 

The data supplier can also verify the imported data by checking on outliers, by visualising 

the data and by making reports. When the data supplier is finished, he sends 

the DEM-AQ to EEA’s Central Data Repository (CDR), which is a module of 

EEA’s Reportnet. For the countries which are not able to access the CDR the DEM- 

AQ can be uploaded to the ftp-server of the ETC/ACC. When the DEM-AQ contains 

only EMEP-data, the DEM-AQ is forwarded to the ftp-server of EMEP. 

All DEM-AQ databases in CDR are copied to the ETC/ACC ftp-server. The data 

of the DEM-AQ databases on the ftp-server are copied to special import tables in the 

AIRBASE database before they are incorporated into the regular AIRBASE tables. The 

DEM-AQ databases with EMEP data will export NASA Ames files for import into 

the EMEP-database EBAS. 

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3. DEM-AQ 

The first version of the DEM-AQ was implemented in 1998. In 2004 DEM-AQ version 

7 is released. DEM-AQ is basically an MS-Access database with a Visual Basic 

user interface. The software is freely downloadable 4 . 

When the data supplier receives the DEM-AQ, the first step is to check the meta 

information and, if necessary, modify, add and delete the meta data (networks, stations 

and measurement configurations, see Figures 2 until 5). 

4 http:/etc-acc.eionet.eu.int/databases/dem_install.html 

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Figure 2: Network maintenance form. 

Figure 3: Station maintenance form, general tab. 

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Figure 4: Station maintenance form, classification tab. 

Figure 5: Measurement configuration maintenance form. 

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Figure 6: Import of data files. 

The next step is to select station - component combinations for which air quality 

data is to be exchanged, including subsequent linking of these combinations to air 

quality data files and import of these files with extensive error checking (Figure 6). 

Then the data supplier can check the imported data on extreme values (outliers) and 

control the data by visualisation (Figures 7 and 8). 

The data supplier can also generate reports and XML dumps of the contents of the 

DEM-AQ. He can also generate Nasa Ames files for incorporation in the EMEP databases. 

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Figure 7: Histogram imported data. 

Figure 8: Line graph imported data. 

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The last step is transmitting the DEM-AQ database through Internet (HTTP POST 

or ftp) for incorporation in the EEA’s Central Data Repository (CDR), EEA - 

ETC/ACC database AIRBASE and the EMEP database EBAS. 

Last year ETC/ACC received air quality data from 30 EEA-member states. Almost 

all countries have sent the DEM-AQ, a few countries delivered ISO-files or 

DEM-files. 

Before uploading AIRBASE ETC/ACC performs some quality checks and sent the 

results to the data suppliers for feedback. When the feedback is processed, all statistics 

and exceedances are calculated from the supplied raw data and loaded in 

AIRBASE. 

AIRBASE can be accessed interactively via an Web based Java application 

(AIRVIEW 5 ). Also each year XML dumps of the complete AIRBASE are available on 

the ETC/ACC Website 6 . 

4. Concluding remarks 

In this contribution a simple Access application is presented. With this tool it is possible 

to exchange air quality information, both meta information on networks, stations 

and measurement configurations and air quality measurement data in a harmonized 

and consistent way. Use of the DEM-AQ improves the quality considerably by 

the checks on format errors, outliers and obligatory meta data and the visualisation 

and report facilities. The DEM-AQ also stimulates the harmonisation of air quality 

data flows by the possibility to combine different data flows in one DEM-AQ. Harmonisation 

of obligatory air quality dataflows (EoI, EMEP, EuroAirnet), but also 

delivery of OSPARCOM data is possible with the DEM-AQ. Also harmonisation of 

meta data is improved: all meta data is centrally managed by AirBase. The data supplier 

can check the meta data in the preloaded DEM-AQ. And finally the DEM-AQ 

has automatic upload facilities to EEA-CDR and the ETC/ACC ftp-server. 

Bibliography 

Mol, W.J.A. (2003): Coupling of AirBase with EEA Map Service Tool, in: The Information 

Society and Enlargement of the European Union, 17 th International 

5 http://etc-acc.eionet.eu.int/databases/airview.html 

6 http://etc-acc.eionet.eu.int/databases/AirBaseXML.html 

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Conference Informatics for Environmental Protection Cottbus 2003, A. 

Gnauck, R. Heinrich (Eds.), Marburg, 2003, pp. 342-392 

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EnviroInfo 2004: DEM-AQ: Data Exchange Module for Air Quality data

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