Distribution of PM10 in Urban Athens as Obtained with the Use of MERIS in Support of the Assessment of the State of the Local Environment: Application During The Period of a Major Sport Event
Cartalis, Costas; Asimakopoulos, D.; Karvounis, G.
University of Athens, GREECE

In this study ground based measurements of PM10 for the urban agglomeration of Athens are correlated to satellite measurements of irradiance, as provided by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), in order to support the assessment of the state of the local environment within the organizing period of a major sport event (Olympic Games 2004). For this to be accomplished five different methods are used: a) Direct correlation of ground measurements of PM10 to satellite measurements of irradiance b) Correlation of normalized satellite measurements of irradiance to ground measurements of PM10 c) Neural network and Principal Component Analysis d) Correlation of the images' contrast to ground measurements and e) as in d) with the use of reference image. All five methodologies are applied to orthocorrected images (with the use of VISAT and of the model GETASSE30), whereas the resampling of pixels is made on the basis of nearest neighbor interpolation. Furthermore all used methods are assessed to provide a number of interesting conclusions: a) A correlation is observed between irradiance and the concentrations of PM10 from the ground network b) The correlation varies in terms of its significance as a function of the concentration of PM10 c) In the case that concentrations of PM10 are low, a dispersion in the values of radiance is observed d) the neural network fails to simulate in a satisfactory manner the concentrations of PM10. On the basis of the defined correlation, the spatial distribution of PM10 in the urban agglomeration of Athens is developed, whereas results are provided for each Municipality in the urban agglomeration of Athens and are also related to recent studies on the impact of excessive concentrations of PM10 to human health. Finally results of the study are linked to related ones for the urban agglomeration of Beijing for the period of the Olympic Games 2008 (G. Huili, Dragon 2 Proceedings, 25-29 June 2012), in an effort to assess the potential of satellite data to support environment related needs of major sport events.