Republic of the Philippines

Northwest Samar State University

Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
Certified

RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORMAT

BASIC INFORMATION
I. Title of the Proposal
GIS-Based Air Quality Monitoring in Pilot Areas of Calbayog City

II. Proponent/s
Engr. Nestor M. Lentejas, Jr.
Engr. Frenzy Edward Jan H. Concha
Engr. Anthony B. Diaz
Engr. Ma. Aimee F. Yabao

III. Agency/College/Department
College of Engineering and Architecture

IV. Research Site

Calbayog City

V. Duration
12 Months

VI. Budgetary Requirements

Php 89,100.00

VII. Funding Agency

Northwest Samar State University

PROJECT DETAILS

I. Introduction

The spatial and temporal representativeness of an air quality monitoring is a relevant

issue to describe the complex spatial and temporal patterns of atmospheric pollution in
a specific area and to achieve a cost-effective control of air quality. The identification of
an area of spatial representativeness allows extending the information retrieved in an
observation point to a wider area surrounding the point. This permits to appropriately
design and optimize an air quality monitoring network, avoiding redundant measuring
nodes and focussing on hot-spots. Moreover, it is from the spatial representativeness
assessment that short and long term exposure of population to air pollution can be
evaluated. As far as air quality modelling studies are concerned, measurements are
suitable for model validation only if their areas of representativeness are at least as
large as model computation grid box.
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
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The spatial representativeness of a monitoring site is a quantification of the variability of

concentrations of a specific pollutant around the site (Blanchard et al., 1999, Larssen et
al., 1999, Spangl et al., 2007). In particular Spangl et al. (2007) report: “the assessment
of representativeness is aimed at the delimitation of areas of the concentration field with
similar characteristics at specific locations. Characteristics, the similarity of which is
being investigated, can either be concentration levels, (statistical) properties of the
measured AQ data, or external parameters influencing AQ, like emissions and
dispersion conditions”. The assessment of spatial representativeness can be based on
various sources of information such as additional air pollutant measurements (Joly and
Peuch, 2012, Flemming et al., 2005, Venegas and Mazzeo, 2010), modelled air
pollutant concentrations (Martín et al., 2013, Santiago et al., 2013), spatial surrogate
data (e.g. land-cover characteristics and emissions sources, Janssen et al., 2012,
Henne et al., 2010). In Henne et al. (2010) the spatial distribution of emissions and
deposition data are reported to be appropriate proxies for the concentrations. However,
since no kilometre-scale emission dataset is available on the study domain, Henne et al.
(2010) used a proxy variable (population) in place of the main parameter (emissions).
As to deposition data, typical deposition velocities were derived, following the
parameterisation of Wesely (1989), from high resolution land-cover data (GLC2000,
European Commission-Joint Research Centre, 2003).

II. Objectives

The main objective of this study is to gather relevant Air Quality Data of selected Pilot
Areas in Calbayog City and develop cartographic sketches of the data gathered.
Specifically, this seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the (urban, rural, coastal) areas in Calbayog City where there is high
concentration of the following;
a. PM10 Particles
b. PM2.5 Particles
c. Carbon Monoxide
d. Nitrous Oxide
e. Ozone (O3)

2. What recommendations we can provide to lessen the concentration of these

harmful gases in the pilot areas.
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
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III. Review of Literature

A PM2.5 monitoring system based on UAVs was put forth by Jumaah et al. (2021). The
introduced system included an air quality detector involving four Arduino sensor
modules with a temperature and humidity sensor (DHT11) and dust sensor (DSM501A).
The DS3231 real-time and NEO-6M GPS modules were also included in the detector
module to visualize input. Also, the data were recorded using the memory module with a
DIY SD card logging shield. Multiple sensing elements were utilized in the detector
system to monitor the gas elements in the air. Those sensing elements were
programmable in the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE) tool. The
study's main aim was to develop a small, cost-efficient, and lightweight air quality
monitoring device to sense the presence of PM2.5 in the air. One limitation was that the
dust sensor was sensitive to air current and added noise to the measurements.

Authors (Loy-Benitez et al., 2020) have devised a methodology to monitor air quality for
subway station-based architecture. An autoencoder (AE) sensor validity index was used
to identify defective sensors (SVIAE). The AE structure performed the faulty sensor
reconstruction and assessed it using numerous performance criteria. They concluded
that mathematical modeling of the ventilation system proved the framework's long-term
viability and fault tolerance. D'Amico et al. (2021) have aimed to characterize the
datafication and globalization of trade. Their strategy is to leverage integrated
technology for smart and sustainable port city logistics development. Their findings
revealed that port cities could increase economic, environmental, social, and
technological efficiency using new technology inputs.
The urban environments are affected by pollutants due to the large-scale usage of
vehicles and industrial activities. This scenario makes it vital to introduce an air quality
prediction system to take the necessary steps to minimize the pollutant concentration in
the air. Gómez-Suárez et al. (2022) introduced a low-cost device with optical and
electrochemical sensors to measure air quality in urban environments. The instrument
included an optical PM sensor to monitor the PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations and 3
electrochemical sensors to measure the concentration NO2 and O3 in the air. The
particle sensor had an input fan that acted as a supply pump for the other sensors to
ensure constant airflow. Eight devices were utilized, and two were collocated in parallel
and calibrated using the multilayer perceptron. The sensing elements to monitor the air
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
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quality were mounted on the bicycle handlebar, and the routes were discovered through
Badajoz, Spain. Also, the air quality index (AQI) was determined to facilitate the users’
understanding. The results proved that the model was accurate, and the calibration
process with the neural network resulted in better accuracy.

Arroyo et al. (2021) provided a low-cost outdoor air quality measurement system using
a portable device. The plan was capable of giving the concentration values of main
pollutants such as CO, NO, O3, NO2, PM2.5 and PM10. Along with those
measurements, the location, temperature, date, and humidity values were also
measured by the device. The portable device was constructed with electrochemical and
optical sensors allocation to reduce the error and noise and maintain higher accuracy in
measurements. The electrochemical sensors were coded based on the factory
algorithm, resulting in varying concentration values. Those values were refined by
implementing various neural network and regression techniques. The raw values
sensed by the sensing elements were directly used as the input to the network models.
The experimental results provided better scores of R2 for the gas sensors, but it was
reduced in terms of particulate matter values due to the presence of fog and rainfall
interferences. An affordable solution for air quality monitoring was introduced by
Santana et al. (2021) along with the construction of a vehicle-mounted sensor network.
The system was built on three key components: a vehicle-mounted sensor, a server for
data storage, and a set of prediction and visualization services. The system worked on
processing the dense spatiotemporal air quality data, and the results proved that the
system was valuable and feasible for environmental scientists and citizens.
Prediction of air quality is one of the complex tasks as it is affected by several complex
factors, including dynamic spatial correlation among the detection sensors and dynamic
temporal correlation with environmental factors. To deal with this problem, Zou et al.
(2021) presented an air quality prediction methodology using the long short-term
memory with spatiotemporal attention mechanism (STA-LSTM). The encoder-decoder
framework was utilized to model the spatiotemporal features. The encoder captured the
influence of neighboring sites over the target area through a spatial attention
mechanism. Then, the temporal attention mechanism was utilized to obtain the time-
dependence in air quality. Moreover, a line graph embedding method was adopted to
acquire more spatial features. The methodology was evaluated using the Beijing
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
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dataset, and the results were satisfactory regarding root mean square error (RMSE) and
R2.
IV. Methodology

Data Gathering and Analysis

Protecting the atmospheric environment involves control of atmospheric emissions as

well as an understanding of pollutant dispersion, monitoring emission levels, i.e.
concentration in ambient air. Air Quality monitoring equipment is to be used to gather
real-time measurements of temperature, humidity, PM2.5, PM10, CO, CO2, NOX, etc.
Monitoring human exposure to potential harmful pollutants and detection and
measurement of harmful gasses from the collected data.

Spatial Analysis

Thru spatial analysis the team will model the gathered data geographically, derive
results and seek to explain patterns that will potentially occur from the collected data.
Examples include nearest neighbor analysis and Thiessen polygons.

Thematic Cartography

Using Geographic Information System applications, thematic maps will be developed.

These maps will show the results generated from the data analysis. Several maps may
be developed such as the choropleth map which portrays quantitative data as a color
and can show density, percent, average value, or quantity of an event within a
geographic area. Sequential colors represent increasing or decreasing positive or
negative data values. Normally, each color also represents a range of values.

Proportional or graduated symbols are used in another type of map to represent data
associated with locations, such as cities. Data is displayed on these maps with
proportionally sized symbols to show differences in occurrences. A dot map, another
type of thematic map, uses dots to show the presence of a theme and display a spatial
pattern. A dot can represent one unit or several, depending on what is being depicted.

Finally, dasymetric mapping is a complex variation on the choropleth map that uses
statistics and additional information to combine areas with similar values instead of
using the administrative boundaries common in a simple choropleth map.
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
Certified

V. References
Abirami and Chitra, 2021, Regional air quality forecasting using spatiotemporal deep
learning

Chauhan et al., 2021, Air quality forecast using convolutional neural network for
sustainable development in urban environments

Blanchard et al., 1999, Spatial representativeness and scales of transport during the
1995 integrated monitoring study in California's San Joaquin Valley

VI. Appendices

VII. Work Plan (see attached sample of Gantt Chart)

VIII. Proposed Budget

Particulars Amount Total

A. Personnel Services
Project Leader: Nestor Lentejas 1000/month 12,000.00
Members:
Frenzy Edward Jan h. Concha 500/month 6,000.00
Anthony B. Diaz 500/month 6,000.00
Ma. Aimee F. Yabao 500/month 6,000.00
Sub-Total 30,000.00

B. MOOE
Air Quality Monitor 3 x 10,000 30,000.00
A4 Bond Paper Sub 20 5 x 240 1,200.00
Printer Ink 8 x 300 2,400.00
Handheld GPS 1 x 15,000.00 15,000.00
1Transportation Allowance (Data 10,000.00 10,000.00
gathering/M&E)
Ballpen 1 x 500 500.00
Sub Total 59,100.00

TOTAL PROJECT COST 89,100.00

IX. List of Personnel

Engr. Nestor M. Lentejas, Jr.
Engr. Frenzy Edward Jan Concha
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
Certified

Engr. Anthony B. Diaz

Engr. Ma. Aimee F. Yabao

X. Cooperating Agencies/College
Local Government of Calbayog City
City Environment and Natural Resources Office
Pilot Barangays

XI. Signature of Proponent/Members and Date of Submission

Prepared by

Engr. Nestor M. Lentejas, Jr., MM

Proponent
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
Certified

ENDORSEMENT

College Dean’s Project Proposal Endorsement Form

Name of Researcher: Designation/Academic Rank

Engr. Nestor M. Lentejas, Jr. Instructor I

College / Department: Date of Submission

College of Engineering and Architecture August 15, 2022

Research Title:

GIS-Based Air Quality Monitoring in the Pilot Areas of Calbayog City

Area of Specialization: Noted:

Geographic Information Systems ENGR. VENIS M. DOCDOC

College Research Coordinator

Endorsed By:

ENGR. NOEMI A. MAJAIT, MSECE

Dean, College of Criminal Justice and Sciences

Action Taken:

Received By:

TEODY LESTER V. PANELA, RN, MAED

Director, Research and Development Services
 Republic of the Philippines
Northwest Samar State University
Rueda St., Calbayog City 6710
Website: http//www.nwssu.edu.ph
Email: main@nwssu.edu.ph
ISO 9001:2015 Telefax: (055) 2093657
Certified

WORK PLAN
MONTH EXPECTED
ACTIVITY OUTPUT
Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug
Requested materials and
1. Material Procurement
equipment are procured and
available
2. Coordination with City Memorandum of Agreement

3. Data Collection
Air Quality Data for Urban Areas
3.1 Urban Areas
Air Quality Data for Rural Areas
3.2 Rural Areas
Air Quality Data for Coastal
3.3 Coastal Areas Areas
4. Consolidation, Interpretation and Tabulated Air Quality Data for
Data Analysis Urban, Rural & Coastal Areas
Thematic Maps for Urban, Rural
5. Develop Thematic Map & Coastal Areas
6. Summary of Findings and Summary of Findings of Air
recommendations Quality Data in Urban, Rural &
Coastal Areas
7. Report Writing (Terminal Terminal report fully
Report) X accomplished and submitted