Northern Ireland Air's Spatial Object Register

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Northern Ireland Air’s Spatial Object Register is a resource for viewing and retrieving information on the air quality objects / features from Northern Ireland Air’s data holdings. It acts as a directory of all air quality-related spatial and data objects managed by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

This register uses the new European Air Quality e-Reporting data model and vocabulary. This brings the benefit of a pan-European unified format for data sharing which is compliant with the INSPIRE Directive. Within the data model a range of spatial and data objects (air quality monitoring networks, stations, etc.) have been defined to describe their attributes.

Each spatial object is uniquely identified using an HTTP unique reference identifier (URI) notation. This identification scheme also generates a valid HTTP address for each spatial object and the Spatial Object Register supports the rendering of these HTTP addresses so the attribute data for each object can be viewed in HTML or downloaded as XML.

A list of the latest air quality spatial objects and data objects managed by Northern Ireland Air and registered to http://www.airqualityni.co.uk/... provided via the links in the table below.

Air Quality spatial and data objects Description
Air quality Networks A collection of monitoring stations with a common purpose
Air quality monitoring Stations A facility with one or more sampling points measuring ambient air quality pollutant concentrations
Air quality monitoring Sampling points An instrument or other device configured to measure an air quality
Air quality monitoring Sampling Point configurations The configuration of a specific analyser, sampler or other device used to measure an air quality pollutant
Air quality monitoring Samples The real world object being sampled

Air Quality e-Reporting and the EIONET Air Quality Portal

The introduction of the European Commission Implementing Decision 2011/850/EU of 12th December 2011 (laying down rules for the Air Quality Directive in force as regards the reciprocal exchange of information and reporting on ambient air quality) provided an opportunity to modernise data reporting to facilitate information sharing in addition to improving data quality and reducing the administrative burden of reporting by automation. As part of the modernisation programme, Air Quality e-Reporting has embraced IT standards-based digital formats for reporting and the internet as the core medium for reporting. This has aligned air quality data sharing with the governmental Open Data initiatives and INSPIRE obligations.

The Air Quality e-Reporting programme is supported by the EIONET Air Quality Portal which provides a range of background information, guidance and resources to promote air quality information sharing in a standardised way including;

  • Information on the data model and XML schema are available from the EIONET Air Quality Portal Data model page.
  • Prescribed rules and benchmarking datasets to standardise calculation aggregated statistics are available from the EIONET Air Quality Portal Aggregation page (limited to European aggregated statistics).
  • A controlled vocabulary for air quality is described on the EIONET Air Quality Portal Code lists page.

Registry maintenance

This registry is managed and maintained by Ricardo Energy & Environment on behalf of DAERA.

Licensing

Northern Ireland Air’s spatial objects and observational data are published under the Open Government Licence (OGL) and subject to the terms described in the "licence" or "constraints" of the OGL. Under the OGL you are free to:

  • copy, publish, distribute and transmit the information.
  • adapt the information.
  • exploit the information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other information, or by including it in your own product or application.

You must, where you do any of the above, acknowledge DAERA and www.airqualityni.co.uk as the source of the information by including the following attribution statement in reports, web pages or derived data products and, where possible, provide a link to the OGL licence.

© Crown 2014 copyright DAERA, licenced under the Open Government Licence (OGL).

The data and information made available through on this website are subject to Crown copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. Read the Crown copyright page for more information. See also https://www.gov.uk/support/terms-conditions.