Project Overview of National Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (NUDAPT)

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Project Overview of National Urban Database and
Access Portal Tools (NUDAPT)
Sixth CMAS Conference Chapel Hill, NC October
1-3, 2007

• Jason Ching
• ARL/NOAA NERL/USEPA
• Research Triangle Park, NC
• ching.jason_at_epa.gov

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NUDAPT Collaborators

• Michael Brown, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Steven Burian, University of Utah
• Fei Chen, UCAR
• Ronald Cionco, U.S. Army
• Richard Ellefson, Private
• Mark Estes, Texas Center for Environmental
  Quality
• Johannes Feddema, University of Kansas
• Joe Fernando, Arizona State University
• Adel Hanna, UNC Institute for the Environment
• Teddy Holt, NRL
• Torrin Hultgren, CSC
• Maudood Khan, Georgia Department of Natural
  Resources
• Chris Kiley, Northrop Grumman Defense Threat
  Reduction Agency
• Jocelyn Mailhot, Environment Canada
• Kungsun Park Arizona State University
• Lela Prashad, Arizona State University
• David Sailor, Portland State University
• Haider Taha Altostratus Inc.
• David Williams U.S. EPA

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Background

• To support advancements in urban modeling a
  community framework urban modelers database is
  proposed.
• Poll and Workshops Overwhelming support from
  AMS, OFCM for this idea and the concepts
  underlying such a database.
• In 2005, EPA provided limited resources to
  develop and demonstrate a Prototype system. (We
  call it NUDAPT)
• Implementation of this (two year) Project was
  made possible with strong support and significant
  contributions from core group of Collaborators
• Prototype implemented as community-based system
  of data, processing and web-based tools.
• Today we report progress on this Prototype.

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Session Urban DatabasesDevelopment and features

• NUDAPT Overview features Ching
• NUDAPT Portal features Williams
• NUDAPT A WRF perspective Chen
• A specialized application Huber

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Presentation Overview

• Background Setting the stage
• Rationale for a database focus
• Content, concepts and implementation of Prototype
• Types of gridded datasets
• Summary

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Most of USA population are in urban areas
NUDAPT supports models that addresses societal
issues in urban areas

• Air Quality Health
• Exposure assessments
• Policy and Controls
• Acute to chronic time scales
• Homeland security
• Transport on episodic bases
• Urban impact on climate change
• Growth
• Urban heat island and its mitigation

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Scales, Courtesy of Grimmond
Melbourne
Gothenburg
Scales
Modifed Oke 1997
Chicago
Chicago
Bremen
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CHALLENGE for meso-to-urban scale modeling
Modelers need To capture the grid average
effect of detailed urban features in mesoscale
atmospheric models Solution Modelers have
defined and implemented urban canopy
parameterizations into their models (e.g., MM5,
WRF, HOTMAC, RAMS, COAMPS)
Salt Lake City, UT (Don Green Photography)
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ISSUE Relating meso-urban to building scale
Buildings distributed in 1 km grid.
Mesoscale Model produces single meteorology
profile applicable to grid cell Results
influenced by the presence and aggregated effects
of buildings. Building scale Intra-cell flow
fields will be highly variable (horizontally and
vertically), influenced by the individual
buildings.
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An implementation DA-SM2-U in MM5 o
Urbanization introduced at grid sizes of 1km
using drag approach (DA) o Land surface
model (SM2-U) o Additional, within canopy
layers
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We have the technology and means for obtaining
building data at high resolution such data and
ancillary data are becoming increasingly
more available for our major cities
High resolution urban morphological data can be
derived from lidar mapping and photogrammetric
techniques
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LIDAR Profiling
Record Longest Return Normally Rotary Wing
Continuous Ground Coverage
High resolution Data for 133 cities
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Implementation of canopy concepts and urban
morphology parameters for improved modeling
The knowledge of the vertical and horizontal
distribution of the different urban land cover
modes is necessary.
PAD
FAD
VFAD
TAD
VPAD
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Selected Urban Canopy Parameters per 1 km2 cells
for Harris County, TX NOTE! Unique combination
of UCPs/cell
PAD
Wall/Plan Area
FAD
Height/Width
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UCPs in NUDAPT
WRF
MM5

• Urban fraction
• Building height, ZR
• Roughness for momentum above the urban canopy
  layer, ZoC
• Roughness for heat above the urban canopy
  layer ZoHC
• Zero-displacement height above the urban
  canopy layer, ZDC
• Percentage of urban canopy, PUC
• Sky view factor, SVF
• Building coverage ratio (roof area ratio), R
• Normalized building height, HGT
• Drag coefficient by buildings, CDS
• Buildings volumetric parameter, AS
• Anthropogenic heat, AH
• Heat capacity of the roof, wall, and road
• Heat conductivity of the roof, wall, and road
• Albedo of the roof, wall, and road
• Emissivity of the roof, wall, and road
• Roughness length for momentum of the roof,
  wall, and road
• Roughness length for heat of the roof, wall,
  and road

• Mean and standard deviation of building and
  vegetation height
• Plan-area weighted mean building and vegetation
  height
• Building height histograms
• Plan area fraction and frontal area index at
  ground level
• Plan area density, top area density, and frontal
  area density
• Complete aspect ratio
• Building area ratio
• Building height-to-width ratio
• Sky view factor at ground level and as a
  function of height
• Aerodynamic roughness length and displacement
  height (Raupach, Macdonald, Bottema)
  coefficients
• Mean orientation of streets
• Surface fraction of vegetation, roads, rooftops,
  water and impervious area, directly connected
  impervious area, albedo and building material
  using remote sensing

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Prototypic ImplementationThe NUDAPT Framework

• Urban modeling is its major focus
• Adopts a community system paradigm-
• Encourages collaborations, accelerates model
  advancements with Portal technology
• Supports various meteorological modeling systems,
  others are possible
• Broad user base (Model developers to users)
• Extensible (to smaller scales, to current and
  future city structures, to revised sets of UCPs)
  
• Database consists of primary and derived
  parameters
• High resolution geospatial data repository or
  links (133 cities in USA)
• Appropriate and complete set of parameterizations
  at urban grid scale
• Ancillary data (to facilitate applications)
• Allowance for evaluation, operational utility
• Features include basic processing methodologies
  and tools
• Selected cities serves as example prototypes to
  highlight capabilities and features

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More robust model applications. It can make a
significant difference!

• Model sensitivity studies show significant
  response to improved urban modeling e.g., air
  quality (next slide)
• Advanced models provide bases for urban design,
  investigations of urban heat island mitigation
  (Examples shown below)
• Resource capable of supporting a variety of
  modeling systems

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Ozone (1 km grid CMAQ simulations) _at_ 2100
GMT UCP
noUCP Difference
(UCP-noUCP)

• Significant differences in the spatial patterns
  shown between UCP and noUCP runs (titration
  effect occurs in both sets)
• Flow, thermodynamics turbulent fields differ
  between the UCP and noUCP simulations
  contribute to differences

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Urban Heat Island mitigation study
Heat islands can be mitigated via
Mitigation of urban heat islands can help

• Reduce cooling energy use Reduce emissions from
  power plants
• Reduce rates of emissions (NOx, VOC, CO2, ..)
  from biogenic and anthropogenic sources
• Slow down the photochemical production and / or
  accumulation of ground-level / tropospheric ozone
• Reduce impact of heat and heat-pollution waves
  reduce mortality
• Impact convective precipitation and
  heat-pollution plumes
• Improve air quality, visibility

• Increased albedo and / or effective urban albedo
  (attn gt 0.37 mm)
• Increased canopy cover (attn isoprene / terpene
  emissions)
• Decreased anthropogenic heat flux
• Managing storage heat flux, thermal mass,
  materials properties
• Managing moisture and runoff, impervious surface
  area
• Controlling urban geometry (solar access and
  implications)

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Examples uMM5 applications Houston-Galveston
Texas and California Urban Heat Island mitigation
study
Sacramento uMM5 domain
Houston uMM5 domain
A L T O S T R A T U S
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Potential for Cooling in California Cities
Los Angeles
San Diego
Pacific Ocean
A L T O S T R A T U S
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AQ response to UHI modification. Comparison
against base case for Sacramento CA
base-case O3
Change in O3 from base case at time of peak.
Increased urban albedo scenario (corresponds to a
reduction of 2-3C in air temperature)
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NUDAPT Portal Two systems, One Whole

• Quickplace
• Powerful, flexible collaboration suite
• Built-in security controls, file sharing ability
• Leverages existing EPA Lotus Domino technology
• Data Download Portal
• Delivers server-side data processing, minimizing
  or eliminating the need for desktop GIS
• Responsive data exploration map viewer
• Relies on ESRIs ArcGIS Server technology

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NUDAPT Tools

• Generalized methodology for alternative sets of
  UCPs
• Spatial allocation for (generalized regridding
  and grid geo-referencing capability
• Portal system and Internet collaboration

More details in next presentation
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Custom Collaborations
Modeling Systems MM5 WRF COAMPS Canadian Army
scale
Data and Derived Products High Resolution data
UCPs- Model Customized Day-night gridded
Populations Gridded Anthropogenic Heat
Urban Prototypes Houston Phoenix Atlanta EU
Megacity?
Applications, Assessments UHI Studies
Exposure Assessments Urban Planning
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NUDAPT ancillary data

• Anthropogenic heating (component of model
  thermodynamics) (Sailor)
• Gridded (3-D)
• Daily
• Diurnal
• Seasonal
• Population (Exposure applications) (Brown and
  McPherson)
• Day
• Night
• Advanced land use data, systems (Model
  evaluation, urban planning applications)
• 100 City studies (ASU)
• TRANSIMS (LaNL) Gridded population-on the move-
  study for the Atlanta Prototype. Important
  activity pattern regarding human activity for
  exposure assessments. (Khan)

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Gridded Anthropogenic Heating (Courtesy of David
Sailor, NUDAPT Collaborator)
Qf (w/m2)
Houston Month08, Hour20
Local Time
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Population Courtesy of McPherson and Brown (2007)

• Options Census, LANL, other government agencies
• Constraints Limitations of datasets
• Prototype LANL Day/Night population
• Future LANL database including indoor/outdoor?

Census Bureau (Night)
LANL-Derived (Day)
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Day Population
250m gridded population for central Houston,
Texas Courtesy of McPherson and Brown (2007)
Night time Population
Daytime Population
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Operations Issues

• Portal Access prototype moved to UNC server
• Domain and Grid Cell Resolution aggregation and
  disaggregation CEPs Spatial Allocator
• Extrapolation Improved methodologies needed to
  extrapolate from places of data coverage to
  places with a data void
• Community to take full advantage of community
  aspect of NUDAPT users must be able to interact
  and grow the portal assets through collaboration

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SUMMARY NUDAPT provides

• Platform for advancing state of urban modeling-
  accomodates new modeling systems, new (sets of)
  parameterizations
• Community framework facilitates collaborations
• Urban model focussed system
• Several tools including regridding and remapping
  to different size map projections
• Prototypes provide strategic means for
  extensibility of its capability (copycat
  principle)
• Is non-stagnant (cities grow), can accommodate
  finer resolution data, data refresh cycle.
• Facilitates handover from model development to
  application deployment
• Extensibility on International bases, e.g., EU
  sponsored Megacity studies, prototypes

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The EndThanks for your attention

• Disclaimer The research presented here was
  performed under the Memorandum of Understanding
  between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
  (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce's
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  (NOAA) and under agreement number DW13921548.
  This work constitutes a contribution to the NOAA
  Air Quality Program. Although it has been
  reviewed by EPA and NOAA and approved for
  publication, it does not necessarily reflect
  their policies or views.