Our solution has as main objective to transform the benefits observed in the short term related to the improvement of air quality, resulting from the expansion of the pandemic and the adoption of social isolation measures, in sustainable benefits in the long term.
To accomplish this, we understand that we must promote a change in people's behavior, promoting the adoption of more sustainable attitudes. Therewith, we proposed the availability of data on greenhouse gas emissions, as from expansion of the pandemic and combat measures adopted, relating them and presenting the results on a dashboard, in addition to the development of a gamification strategy offered in our solution app. The gamification process happens by the users accepting to enter in a journey of continuous positive impact, offered by "Ari", an AI developed to give missions and tips weekly. It helps them to cause these impacts on their daily life. The users earns awards (badges and stars) every time a mission is completed, and it provides the exact improvement they caused on the enviroment with these missions on their region. It also has a ranking system that promote competitiveness between users, motivating them to do even more missions.
It is in these ways that we seek to raise people's awareness: presenting information that demonstrates the scale of the impact of our daily attitudes on the environment and encouraging the adoption of more sustainable attitudes through the gamification strategy.
Therefore, we believe that our project can positively impact society as a whole, starting with individual actions and, in the long run, promoting structural changes in production systemstowards a low carbon economy.
In addition, the dashboard can be put into practice immediately, after being refined, to provide support and guide people in making more sustainable decisions, something that is already sought by a large number of them, in the sense to develop a more sustainable world and encourage conscious consumption.
Our project is realistic in technological and scientific terms. To develop our solution, we use NASA databases already available for queries and we relate those data through Power BI.
Our solution has as main objective to transform the observed benefits, in the short term, related to the improvement of the air quality, caused by the pandemic expansion and by the adoption of social isolation measures, in long-term sustainable benefits.
To accomplish this, we understand that we must promote a change in people's behavior, promoting the adoption of more sustainable attitudes. Therewith, information bought through the crossing of these data on greenhouse gases, on the expansion of the pandemic and on the combat measures adopted are available on a dashboard, demonstrating the size of the impact of the actions on the environment and, thus, encouraging and providing support for more sustainable decision-making.
In addition, to further encourage the adoption of sustainable attitudes, we proposed an application, which offers a gamification strategy, prototyped through Figma (check the prototype here: https://www.figma.com/proto/6NC413ClRXL0F9hfO2dfak/AirStats-App---OPTICOM?node-id=0%3A2&scaling=scale-down).
AirStats Pitch Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HThgigzYVps&feature=youtu.be
AirStats Dashboard: https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiYjRkMTNmMDgtMTJhMi00OGJiLWFiMzktNmRmZTc5OGQ4NmE0IiwidCI6IjBlZmRiOGUzLTg5MDYtNGFiNy05ZThmLTc5MTY4Y2ZkYWFiNiJ9
AirStats Prototype:https://www.figma.com/proto/6NC413ClRXL0F9hfO2dfak/AirStats-App---OPTICOM?node-id=0%3A2&scaling=scale-down
1. Capture all information regarding the emission of the following gases: NO2 (nitrogen dioxide), CH4 (methane), O3 (ozone), Aerosols, CO (carbon monoxide) and CO2 (carbon dioxide). In this perspective, it is important to mention that these fluids are the main triggers of pulmonary deficiencies - directly or indirectly. Thus, given the circumstances of Covid-19, the treatment of these data is relevant for the guidance of populations of risk or not, for example.
NO2: It is one of the main respiratory pollutants and one of the main ingredients of air pollution in the summer. Nitrogen dioxide levels decrease when companies and factories close, or when there are fewer vehicles on the roads. In this sense, it is relevant to mention that NO2 is commonly used to assess regional air quality and possible trends in relation to industrial activity.
CH4: potential greenhouse gas and one of the main drivers of man-made climate change. The combustion of fossil fuels is the main source of CO2, while CH4 is released during the extraction of natural gas (fracturing), enteric fermentation (cow burping) and other anthropogenic and natural processes. Measurements of these gases help us to quantify and compare the strength of different sources and thus create more accurate emission inventories. It can also serve as a tracker for assigning other trace species (remaining gases).
O3: it is a gas composed of three oxygen atoms (O3). It occurs naturally in small amounts (traces) in the upper atmosphere (the stratosphere). Ozone protects life on Earth from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) close to the Earth's surface, ozone is created by chemical reactions between air pollutants from vehicle exhaust gases, vapors, gasoline and other emissions. At ground level, high concentrations of ozone are toxic to people and plants.
Aerosols: small solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere are called aerosols. Wind-blown dust, sea salts, volcanic ash, smoke from forest fires and factory pollution are examples of aerosols. Depending on the size, type and location, aerosols can cool the surface or heat it up. They can help to form clouds, or they can inhibit the formation of clouds. And if inhaled, some aerosols can be harmful to people's health. High amounts of aerosol are linked to different processes at different locations and times of the year. High amounts of aerosol occur in South America from July to September. This pattern is due to deforestation and agricultural fires that are common in the regions of the Amazon Basin and the Cerrado during the dry season. Aerosols have a similar seasonal pattern in Central America (March to May), in central and southern Africa (June to September and Southeast Asia (January to April).
CO: is one of the six main air pollutants regulated in different nations of the world. When carbon-based fuels, such as coal, wood and oil, burn incompletely or inefficiently, they produce carbon monoxide. The gas is spread through the winds and throughout the lower atmosphere (called the troposphere). Thus, it is relevant to mention that carbon monoxide is a trace gas (remaining) in the atmosphere and does not directly affect global temperature, such as methane and carbon dioxide. However, carbon monoxide plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and affects the atmosphere's ability to purify itself from many other polluting gases.
CO2: is the most significant greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere, because it is a long-lived species and absorbs infrared radiation. Thus, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere influences the Earth's radiative balance, as it absorbs longwave radiation emitted by the planet's surface. As the radioactive balance affects the temperature of the atmosphere, the concentration of CO2 is a determining factor for the concentration of other greenhouse gases that depend on the atmospheric temperature, mainly water vapor. CO2 is a vital part of the Earth's carbon cycle, as it is produced by breathing in animals and consumed by photosynthesis in plants. It is exchanged between the atmosphere and the oceans, the biosphere and the atmosphere, and between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere through geological processes. CO2 is also produced by human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) for energy production, cement production, change in land use (which alters the respiration rates of soil bacteria and sequestration CO2 and plant growth). Human activities can also cause a reduction in atmospheric CO2, increasing plant growth via fertilization and adding nutrients to water bodies, which increases phytoplankton growth.
2. From the information collected above, we started to prepare the database. The gas datasets were extracted from the websites https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and https://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/, both available as a source of funds. From the first location, we obtained information from maps recorded in GeoTiff format, both in Greyscale, at a resolution of 3600 x 1800 (0.1 degrees) for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) gas and 1440 x 720 (0.25 degrees) for Ozone (O3 gas) ). As for the second site, we obtained information in CSV format, of the average of a timeline (daily) for Methane gas (CH4). For Aerosols, the images were obtained using the radio spectrometer (MODIS) with Depth 550 nm. Nitrogen dioxide is measured in billions of molecules / mm2 and ozone is measured in Dobson (DU), whose unit corresponds to 0.4462 millimoles of ozone / m2. Methane gas is measured in ppbv (parts per billion by volume). Regarding aerosols, the units of measurement were not available. Methane and Aerosol gas data were obtained for the area comprised by the ends of the State of São Paulo (-53.5, -24.5, -44.5, -20.5). Regarding the extension of Covid-19 in the State of São Paulo, the following daily data were used: new cases and deaths by municipality, made available by the public repository Brasil.io (https://brasil.io/covid19/). Regarding the governmental action of social isolation, we obtained data from the State of São Paulo itself through the website https://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/isolamento. The geolocation data of the municipalities, on the other hand, were obtained from GitHub through the website <https://codeload.github.com/kelvins/Municipios-Brasileiros/zip/master>.
3. Data extraction and manipulation took place with the help of the Google Colab platform, using a Python notebook and the Matplotlib, Numpy, Geopandas, Pandas and Earthpy libraries. The municipalities were initially correlated, using the IBGE code, with the isolation data and cases of Covid-19, as well as the geolocation data. In addition, through geolocation data, information related to those locations was obtained from the GeoTiff files. Regarding the measurements of Nitrogen Dioxide and Ozone, in a timeline of one year, that is, from May 2019 to May 2020 - in order to enable the study of the impact of the measures implemented by Covid-19 in the atmosphere -, the data on methane gas and aerosols were distributed equally to all municipalities, as they represent the daily average for the entire state. Finally, the platform used for the aforementioned work is available for consultation at the Google Colab shared address: <https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1gv8MGDXeFSLxnoBbF3ap0li-ncT9ec8_?usp=sharing>.
4. Due to the unavailability of all the necessary data for the prototyping of the model, we use the database of the gases found (NO2, CH4, O3, and Aerosols) as a form of application analogy for the following gases: NO2, CO, CO2, SO2 - which are very harmful to human health. Thus, the application of all the above methodology was used as a way of elucidating the main steps to be handled with the fluids most harmful to human life, since it is from them that we can map the main regions where Covid-19 provided significant impacts with respect to its emission into the atmosphere. It is important to mention that, in view of the current isolation measures, the rate of irradiation of these gases has decreased - which caused changes, in the short term, in the ecosystem of certain regions. The dashboard, however, will assist in government decision making, since it will be able to measure the assertiveness of its measures. The justification is given by comparing data plotted on the map, in which it will be possible to show the reduction or not of dispersion of gases in the environment, so that the spread of Covid-19 can be reduced with the measures of isolation and / or stoppage of non-essential activities. In addition, the report provided by the dashboard, in the medium term, will assist the population with regard to air quality in certain regions of the city. Therefore, these data become relevant to society, as the impacts of Covid-19 occurred not only on the environment, but also on the quality of life of people, since, now, they will act more cautiously under certain circumstances. In this sense, associated with the dashboard, we thought of an application that could, in real time, assess air quality, so that, in case of any abnormality, the individual can rethink his actions. As an example, we would have an individual who would like to go to the downtown, but, due to the significant emission of polluting gases, he/she reevaluates the real need for displacement - in order to avoid possible agglomerations.