IS428 AY2018-19T1 Le Thanh An

TO BE A VISUAL DETECTIVE: BULGARIA AIR POLLUTION

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).

Exploratory Data Analysis & Data Transformation

EEA Data

We are given 27 csv files, along with 1 metadata xlsx file. We can combine the 27 files using Tableau union function. In addition, we would inner join the csv data with the metadata, with the column AirQualityStationEoICode as the common column.

Problem #1
Issue	There are missing data from Jan 2017 to Nov 2017. In addition, Orlov station doesn't have any data from year 2016-2018, and within 2012-2015 for Orlov there are missing data between July 2013 to September 2013 as well as Feb 12 2015 to Feb 24 2015. Mladost station only have data in 2018.
Solution	Example

Air Tube Data

Problem #2
Issue	Tableau does not recognise geohash as geospatial data. Air Tube data uses geohashes to locate its sensors. We would need to transform the geohashes into latitude and longitude for further visualisation
Solution	Example