A decision support system for air quality network design

In the last few years, due to the implementation of European and Italian laws, public agencies are in urgent need of objective criteria and methodologies for the correct location of air quality monitoring networks. This paper describes MoNet, a decision support system oriented to network designers, to help them in the choice of the number and the location of instruments in an assigned area. The package includes a model base consisting of a set of pollution diffusion simulation models and two optimization algorithms for network location and allows the user to integrate his or her own subjective knowledge of the problem with the results of the simulations performed by means of objective techniques. The package has been applied to revise the air quality network located in an industrial and urban area of Northern Italy. The results of the simulations performed by using different diffusion models, location algorithms and problem constraints are shown and discussed in the concluding section.