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DETECTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF TOXIC AIR POLLUTANTS USING AIRBORNE LWIR HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGING
Citation:
WILLIAMS, D. J., A. N. PILANT, DORSEY D. WORTHY, B. FELDMAN, T. WILLIAMS, AND P. LUCEY. DETECTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF TOXIC AIR POLLUTANTS USING AIRBORNE LWIR HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGING. SPIE Fourth International Asia-Pacific Environmental Remote Sensing Symposium, Honolulu, HI, November 08 - 11, 2004. SPIE/International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA, 5655:1-8, (2005).
Impact/Purpose:
The objective of this task is to develop and evaluate numerical and physical modeling tools for simulating ground-level concentrations of airborne substances in urban settings at spatial scales ranging from ~1-10 km. These tools will support client needs in the areas of air toxics and homeland security. The air toxics tools will benefit the National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) program and human exposure modeling needs within EPA. The homeland security-related portion of this task will help in developing tools to assess the threat posed by the release of airborne agents. Both sets of tools will consider the effects induced by urban morphology on fine-scale concentration distributions.
Description:
Airborne longwave infrared LWIR) hyperspectral imagery was utilized to detect and identify gaseous chemical release plumes at sites in sourthern Texzas. The Airborne Hysperspectral Imager (AHI), developed by the University of Hawaii was flown over a petrochemical facility and a confined animal feeding operation on a modified DC-3 during April, 2004. Data collected by the AHI system was successfully used to detect and identify numerous plumes at both sites. Preliminary results indicate the presence of benzene and ammonia and several other organic compounds. Emissions were identified using regression analysis on atmospherically compensated data. Data validation was conducted using facility emission inventories. This technology has great promise for monitoring and inventorying facility emissiosns, detecting emissions not identified by conventional methods, and may be used as means to assist ground inspectiong teams to focus on actual fugitive emission points.