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Images from the
Fire, Smoke, and Air-Quality
Network (FSAN) |
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The management of fire, smoke,
and air quality is tasked to multiple agencies at federal, state, and local
levels. The diversity in data collection methods, data reporting requirements,
data formatting schemes, data analysis methods, and data presentation create a
daunting challenge for the integration of these data. However, integration of
these heterogeneous datasets is precisely what is called for by federal and
regional organizations in order to derive a more comprehensive understanding of
forest fires, including particulate matter emissions, and their impacts.
Through a Digital Government
project funded by the US EPA, the Forest Service and the NSF,
The network uses software
“middleware” components to link to and transform disparate data and offer them
to end users through an easy-to-use web browser front end. The middleware
components, based on web services and data standards, handle the data
transformations and integration ‘behind the scenes’ and provide end users with
the level of detail they desire; whether “raw” data or “value-added”
information such as maps of fire locations or patterns of emissions. The data and tools included in the network
are based on input from the user community.
The middleware components are
built on the distributed Voyager (dVoy)
infrastructure, a spatial-temporal framework that enables multi-dimensional
data access and displays (i.e. maps and time series). The fire, smoke, and air
quality network extends the dVoy infrastructure to
accommodate new data types for fire and smoke applications and creates new web
services for advanced fire-related data display and analysis.
Last Updated June 25, 2003
Contact Webmaster: kag3@cec.wustl.edu