IS428 AY2018-19T1 Wang Sheng

Problem & Motivation

Air pollution is an important risk factor for health in Europe and worldwide. A recent review of the global burden of disease showed that it is one of the top ten risk factors for health globally. Worldwide an estimated 7 million people died prematurely because of pollution; in the European Union (EU) 400,000 people suffer a premature death. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicts that in 2050 outdoor air pollution will be the top cause of environmentally related deaths worldwide. In addition, air pollution has also been classified as the leading environmental cause of cancer.

Air quality in Bulgaria is a big concern: measurements show that citizens all over the country breathe in air that is considered harmful to health. For example, concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 are much higher than what the EU and the World Health Organization (WHO) have set to protect health.

Bulgaria had the highest PM2.5 concentrations of all EU-28 member states in urban areas over a three-year average. For PM10, Bulgaria is also leading on the top polluted countries with 77 μg/m3on the daily mean concentration (EU limit value is 50 μg/m3).

According to the WHO, 60 percent of the urban population in Bulgaria is exposed to dangerous (unhealthy) levels of particulate matter (PM10).

Dataset Analysis & Transformation Process

Before analyzing the data, there is a need to do data preparation to make sense of the data. Under the Sofia Air data, there are 4 different zip files provided in the assignment with each own unique ways to process and make sense of the data. This particular section will be used to elaborate on the dataset analysis and its transformation process for each dataset, to prepare the data for import and analysis onto tableau.

We are provided with 4 different zip files of data covering all aspects of measures. A good understand on the data content will definitely help us on analyzing the problem. This particular section will be used to elaborate on the dataset analysis and the data transformation needed to be done for all the datasets.

Datasets

• Official air quality measurements (5 stations in the city)(EEA Data.zip) – as per EU guidelines on air quality monitoring see the data description HERE…
• Citizen science air quality measurements (Air Tube.zip) , incl. temperature, humidity and pressure (many stations) and topography (gridded data).
• Meteorological measurements (1 station)(METEO-data.zip): Temperature; Humidity; Wind speed; Pressure; Rainfall; Visibility
• Topography data (TOPO-DATA)

Data transformation

Before start analyzing the data, we notice that the data are not readily prepared to be analyzed by data visualization softwares due to following problems 1. Date are in different formats