About Me

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Belfast, Northern Ireland, Manila, Philippines, United Kingdom
Very simple person with a simple plan in life. A registered Philippine civil engineer, an urban/environmental planner, a lecturer/tutor; plays badminton, loves to swim, sing and dance; has the passion in drawing, writing reviews/poems and reading, and a photo enthusiast.

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Geo Mashup Competition 2009 runner-up winner

I WAS LUCKY TO BE CHOSEN AS ONE of the winners of the 2009 Geo Mashup competition organised by Northern Ireland's Department of Finance and Personnel, in cooperation with the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland. This annual event encourages students in Northern Ireland to utilise geographic information (spatially generated data) from OSNI with other datasets.

My colleague (also a PhD student from the University of Ulster), David M. got the grand prize for presenting his project proposal on road tax mapping, while the other runner-up, Daniel also a student from UU (Coleraine) presented his idea on how to improve Translink's travel planner.

On the other hand, my proposal was to utilise the data from two existing projects that monitor and assess the level of noise and air pollutants in Northern Ireland's sensitive land uses (residential, institutional, educational, cultural). As a runner-up winner, I received a high-specs HP Business Compag laptop and a pre-incentive £250 cash.



Click the link for last year's(2008) winner: Aidan Higgins

My detailed project proposal is entitled: AIR AND NOISE MAPPING AND MONITORING PROJECT (ANMMP). Air and noise pollution is a pressing issue worldwide and it is given a considerable attention on the impacts to the public health and the mitigations it require in minimising the adverse effects to the environment as a whole.

In particular, there are two programmes established in Northern Ireland that address this issue: (1) Noise Mapping Northern Ireland project, and (2) Local Air Quality Management (LAQM). The Noise Mapping NI project is initiated by both private and public sectors aimed to meet the requirements set by the European Directive: Environmental Noise Directive (END, 2002/49/EC) in terms of assessing and managing environmental noise in major urban transport service areas in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, LAQM provides the guideline for each district councils in Northern Ireland to review and assess the level of air pollutants against the standards set within the Air Quality Strategy released in 1997.

The main output of the Noise Mapping NI is the production of noise maps piloted in 2004/2005 for Belfast area. These detailed maps are generated in various categories covering sound levels both night and day periods. The noise data are plotted using the Ordnance Survey map of Northern Ireland (Crown copyright).

There are 8 pollutants monitored in 2006 from the LAQM's 40 air quality monitoring stations. The data from these stations are combined with the emissions information provided by the UK's National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) which provides a comprehensive record of ambient air quality across the country.

On this premise, the Air and Noise Mapping and Monitoring Project (ANMMP) intends to consolidate the data from the Noise Mapping NI and the LAQM inventory into one detailed map. In terms of originality and adding value to the data from the agencies involved, the author tends to incorporate the existing sensitive land uses of Northern Ireland (or a pilot area within Belfast City) which will be generated as a new dataset for ANMMP. The sensitive land use map will be derived from actual visual survey and will be plotted to form a composite map. The composite map provides a mechanism to investigate the concentrations of noise and pollutants in Northern Ireland; consequently highlights areas for immediate management and planning controls particularly in sensitive land uses.

Some of these mitigation measures will be incorporated into the project site planning and design such as: orientation of building openings, orientation of open spaces associated with sensitive land uses and road networks; construction of perimeter sound walls, provision for setbacks and buffers and restriction of vehicle speeds. This map is essential in the promotion of alternative travel modes in town/city centres like pedestrians and bicycle lanes as well as the promotion for alternative fuel for residential heating and cars. In addition, ANMMP could be the basis for the prioritisation of road infrastructure improvement in terms of the type of materials for roads and acoustic barriers between roads and sensitive land uses (like houses, schools, medical facilities).

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