Jana Borůvková

Three Levels of R Language Involvement in Global Monitoring Plan Warehouse Architecture

Three different options for involving R statistical software in the infrastructure of the data warehouse and visualization tool of the Global Monitoring Plan for persistent organic pollutants are presented, all differing in their demands with respect to data transfer rates, numbers of concurrently connected users, total amounts of data transferred, and the possibilities of repeating statistical calculations within a short period. After the development stage, two of these options were used at different levels of the system, demonstrating the specificity of their use and enabling the deployment of the powerful features of R statistical software by a system created using conventional programming languages.

GENASIS System Architecture

GENASIS (Global ENvironmental ASsessment and Information System) is the web environmental information system which is an environmental data repository that provides comprehensive information on chemical contamination of the environment by Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). GENASIS combines data from long-term environmental monitoring programmes operated by RECETOX with validated data from partner institutions, and provides data archives, data management services and analytical processing of data. In the past few years the GENASIS system has undergone rapid development and grew up from the data repository into a scientific data infrastructure.

POPs in ambient air from MONET network - Global and regional trends

The Stockholm Convention (SC) on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) mentioned in Article 16 of the SC that its effectiveness shall be evaluated starting four years after the date of its entry into force. Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) has been developed with an objective of evaluating whether the POPs actually were reduced or eliminated on the global scale. As one of the key matrices for the global monitoring, an ambient air was selected. We are using two approaches for sampling – so called active using the high volume samplers, and passive air samplers (PAS) as new tools for the air quality monitoring. MONET programme (MONnitoring NETwork) is driven by RECETOX as the Regional Centre of the Stockholm Convention for the region of Central and Eastern Europe on the national scale (MONET-CZ, containing 37 sites including 15 backgrounds), and regional scales – the Central, Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (MONET-CEECs), the Pacific Islands (MONET-PIs), the African continent (MONET-AFRICA) and newly the whole of Europe (MONET-Europe). Samples are collected every 28 days; it represents 13 samples from each site every year. Keyword: Stockholm Convention, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), ambient air monitoring.

GMP Data Warehouse – a Supporting Tool of Effectiveness Evaluation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is multilateral environmental agreement focused on selected persistent organic pollutants (POPs) for which the contracting Parties must adopt measures to eliminate or reduce their production and use or minimise the unintentional releases. One of the tools for the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention is Global Monitoring Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutants (GMP) – a project that aims to collect global data on POPs concentrations in selected environmental matrices. This paper introduces an information system GMP Data Warehouse, which was developed in order to provide user-friendly tools for the collection, storage, analyses and visualisation of data from international POPs monitoring activities.

GENASIS: On-Line Data Browser for Environmental Monitoring and Associated Information Systems

The current environmental research is producing large quantities of data on all environmental matrices and number of chemical and biological endpoints. However, there is a paradox in this situation that we suffer from lack of representative data, since their production has not been accordingly supported by development of systems that make them accessible for analysis. The introduced GENASIS data browser aims in its current version on the problem of persistent organic pollutants and the analysis, visualization and interpretation of data from their monitoring networks. The development of the GENASIS involves problems of the so called information pyramid: monitoring (obtaining environmental data), data validation (including uncertainty quantification), data analysis, and methods of aggregation of data from different sources, model generalization and interpretation of results, and their presentation. Within the frame of the GENASIS data browser, we introduce a user-friendly system for the visualization and analysis of contamination of all environmental compartments by persistent organic pollutants and evaluation of actual POPs contamination, its long-term trends and seasonal fluctuations. Project outcomes are useful as information source both for lay public and experts, as well as for the process of the Stockholm Convention implementation.

Tools for Collection, Analysis and Visualization of Data from the Stockholm Convention Global Monitoring Plan on Persistent Organic Pollutants

The Global Monitoring Plan for persistent organic pollutants is an important component of the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention and its main objective is assessment of long-term changes in POPs concentrations in core matrices – ambient air and human tissues (milk, blood). This paper summarizes results of activities of the Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment and the Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses, Masaryk University, Czech Republic, which have been performed on the basis of the mandate given by Global Coordination Group for GMP and Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention: content analysis of the GMP monitoring reports published in 2009, on-line visualization tool for browsing and analyzing collected data from the monitoring reports, and proposal of a design of future data collection campaigns.