Application of Satellite Air Pollution and Atmospheric Environment Monitoring for Public Health

Air pollution (PM2.5) and global warming are the hot issues caused serious problems in public health and climate change all around the world. Currently, the observations of PM2.5 and thermal flux are primarily provided from ground stations, which are limited by the located points and spatial distribution. Due to the high variance of PM2.5 in spatial and temporal distributions, the point measurements are not satisfied for a regional monitor. On the other, satellite equips with the wide and periodical observation which can well compensate the limitation of stations’ point measurements in providing the comprehensive monitor of PM2.5. Associated with the Asian geostationary satellite (Himawari-8), the objective of this project aims at the integration of multi-satellite observations with the advanced remote sensing technology in providing high spatiotemporal PM2.5 and thermal flux for investigating the impacts of air pollution and thermal environment on public health in Taiwan. Thus the main topics proposed in this project for 3 years include the construction of high spatiotemporal PM2.5 and thermal flux retrieval models in the 1st year, the analysis of associations between types of ambient PM2.5 and under-five and maternal mortality in Asia and Africa (2nd year) and further assessing the impacts of air pollution in different level of exposure and component for the reference of standard air quality of PM2.5 and the sustainable public health in Taiwan during the last year.