The use of video for air pollution source monitoring
The evaluation of air pollution impacts from single industrial emission sources is a complex environmental engineering problem. Recent developments in multimedia technologies used by personal computers improved the digitizing and processing of digital video sequences. This paper proposes a methodology where statistical analysis of both meteorological and air quality data combined with digital video images are used for monitoring air pollution sources. One of the objectives of this paper is to present the use of image processing algorithms in air pollution source monitoring. CCD amateur video cameras capture images that are further processed by computer. The use of video as a remote sensing system was implemented with the goal of determining some particular parameters, either meteorological or related with air quality monitoring and modeling of point sources. These parameters include the remote calculation of wind direction, wind speed, gases stack's outlet velocity, and stack's effective emission height. The characteristics and behavior of a visible pollutant's plume is also studied. Different sequences of relatively simple image processing operations are applied to the images gathered by the different cameras to segment the plume. The algorithms are selected depending on the atmospheric and lighting conditions. The developed system was applied to a 1,000 MW fuel power plant located at Setubal, Portugal. The methodology presented shows that digital video can be an inexpensive form to get useful air pollution related data for monitoring and modeling purposes.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. Nova de Lisboa, Monte da Caparica (PT)
- OSTI ID:
- 20002154
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608-; TRN: IM200002%%154
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Air and Waste 92nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition, St. Louis, MO (US), 06/20/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Air and Waste 92nd annual meeting and exhibition proceedings, [9500] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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