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Development and implementation of air quality data mart for Ontario, Canada : a case study of air quality in Ontario using OLAP tool

Muhammad, Samira (2010) In LUMA-GIS Thesis GISM01 20091
Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
Abstract
This thesis describes the development and implementation of Air Quality Data Mart for Ontario
Canada using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tool. It is followed by a case study which
presents comparisons of air quality between the urban and rural areas, peak and non-peak hours,
working days and weekends for various cities in Ontario. The purpose of this study is to develop
a user friendly tool for historical air quality data and evaluate the functionality of the tool by
extracting the data across several dimensions. The data for air quality is available on the Ontario
Ministry of Environment website for 43 monitoring stations across Ontario. This data is in the
form of static Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) pages which cannot... (More)
This thesis describes the development and implementation of Air Quality Data Mart for Ontario
Canada using Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tool. It is followed by a case study which
presents comparisons of air quality between the urban and rural areas, peak and non-peak hours,
working days and weekends for various cities in Ontario. The purpose of this study is to develop
a user friendly tool for historical air quality data and evaluate the functionality of the tool by
extracting the data across several dimensions. The data for air quality is available on the Ontario
Ministry of Environment website for 43 monitoring stations across Ontario. This data is in the
form of static Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) pages which cannot be used for analytical
purposes.
Air quality data mart was developed using open source OLAP. The database was designed using
multidimensional modeling approach. OLAP server “Mondrian” was used as the presentation
server whereas “Openi” client was used as an end user tool for this study. The different functions
available in this data mart are: rollup, drill down and slice and dice the data across several
dimensions such as time, location and pollutant.
The most important conclusion of this thesis is the successful implementation of an air quality
data mart with the possibility to extract accurate historical air quality data. The data in the form
of a data mart provides numerous advantages, where it can be analyzed according to the required
analytical perspective for a given city/cities. The only drawback of having data in the form of a
data mart is that, if the data is drilled down to the finest precision i.e. to the hour (depending on
the number of dimensions selected) the resulting chart will be very crowded but the generated
report will present a complete overview of the analysis. (Less)
Abstract
Popular summary: Air quality data mart built in this study consists of historical air pollutant data for cities across
Ontario. This data is available at the Ontario ministry of environment website from 2000-2007
for most of the cities. There is missing data for some of the cities and some pollutants as well. It
is because the monitoring of those specific pollutants did not commence in or before 2000.
This data mart facilitates the user to extract historical data. The user does not need to know query
language skills. With user friendly interface data analysis can be performed using drag and drop
feature. The statistical functions implemented in this data mart are AVG, MIN and MAX. The
database is designed in a form where it is... (More)
Popular summary: Air quality data mart built in this study consists of historical air pollutant data for cities across
Ontario. This data is available at the Ontario ministry of environment website from 2000-2007
for most of the cities. There is missing data for some of the cities and some pollutants as well. It
is because the monitoring of those specific pollutants did not commence in or before 2000.
This data mart facilitates the user to extract historical data. The user does not need to know query
language skills. With user friendly interface data analysis can be performed using drag and drop
feature. The statistical functions implemented in this data mart are AVG, MIN and MAX. The
database is designed in a form where it is possible to extract data for a specific time period. This
data can be further filtered based on location and a given pollutant. The query output is in the
form of a chart and a table. It is also possible to save the analysis which can be accessed again in
future for referential purposes.
The air quality in Ontario was compared using parameters like weekday – weekend effect, peak
hour – off peak hour, urban and rural areas etc. Most of these parameters were used for the cities
of Toronto and Ottawa. The results generated by the data mart showed that the pollutant
concentration levels in both cities surpassed the recommended guidelines, but there were less
exceedance days monitored in Ottawa compared to Toronto.
This data mart lacks the component of visual maps. It would be interesting if this data mart had a
choropleth map associated with the pollutant measurements. This would enable the user to
visually comprehend the air quality data. However, if there are limitations in air quality data mart
for Ontario, Canada at this point it is an indicator that spatial maps with spatial statistics can be
implemented in future. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Muhammad, Samira
supervisor
organization
course
GISM01 20091
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
OLAP, data mart, multidimensional modeling, air quality, ambient air quality criteria, Canadian environment sustainability indicator
publication/series
LUMA-GIS Thesis
report number
9
language
English
id
3559141
date added to LUP
2013-02-28 14:04:29
date last changed
2013-02-28 14:04:29
@misc{3559141,
  abstract     = {{Popular summary: Air quality data mart built in this study consists of historical air pollutant data for cities across
Ontario. This data is available at the Ontario ministry of environment website from 2000-2007
for most of the cities. There is missing data for some of the cities and some pollutants as well. It
is because the monitoring of those specific pollutants did not commence in or before 2000.
This data mart facilitates the user to extract historical data. The user does not need to know query
language skills. With user friendly interface data analysis can be performed using drag and drop
feature. The statistical functions implemented in this data mart are AVG, MIN and MAX. The
database is designed in a form where it is possible to extract data for a specific time period. This
data can be further filtered based on location and a given pollutant. The query output is in the
form of a chart and a table. It is also possible to save the analysis which can be accessed again in
future for referential purposes.
The air quality in Ontario was compared using parameters like weekday – weekend effect, peak
hour – off peak hour, urban and rural areas etc. Most of these parameters were used for the cities
of Toronto and Ottawa. The results generated by the data mart showed that the pollutant
concentration levels in both cities surpassed the recommended guidelines, but there were less
exceedance days monitored in Ottawa compared to Toronto.
This data mart lacks the component of visual maps. It would be interesting if this data mart had a
choropleth map associated with the pollutant measurements. This would enable the user to
visually comprehend the air quality data. However, if there are limitations in air quality data mart
for Ontario, Canada at this point it is an indicator that spatial maps with spatial statistics can be
implemented in future.}},
  author       = {{Muhammad, Samira}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{LUMA-GIS Thesis}},
  title        = {{Development and implementation of air quality data mart for Ontario, Canada : a case study of air quality in Ontario using OLAP tool}},
  year         = {{2010}},
}