Background Information

In November of 1995, the CASA Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Project Team produced "A Strategic Plan for Air Quality Monitoring in Alberta". This strategic plan proposed that an air quality monitoring system be designed with a common data management protocol for the entire province. The basic principles for the data management system recommended in the strategic plan included:

reliable and flexible information access, retrieval, archiving, and utilization, based on credible data management procedures;
data security;
responsible data ownership and co-ordination between owners;
horizontal flow of information to all stakeholders; and
an ability to transfer information vertically between various scales of monitoring.

The strategic plan proposed that an electronic data interface must be standardized to ensure correlation capability and access with other monitoring programs, such as those that are collecting data to do with human health, ecosystem health, and zones. It was intended that ambient air quality information be fed into the data management system from continuous analyzers at both stationary and mobile sites, from laboratory data, and from bio-receptor data. Automated data summaries can then be prepared with the information presented in various formats.

Based on the recommendations of the CASA strategic plan, the AAADMS was developed in the spring of 1997. By September of 1997, the AAADMS evolved from the pilot phase to an operational data management system with a Web site as the public interface.

	Background Information In November of 1995, the CASA Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Project Team produced "A Strategic Plan for Air Quality Monitoring in Alberta". This strategic plan proposed that an air quality monitoring system be designed with a common data management protocol for the entire province. The basic principles for the data management system recommended in the strategic plan included: reliable and flexible information access, retrieval, archiving, and utilization, based on credible data management procedures; data security; responsible data ownership and co-ordination between owners; horizontal flow of information to all stakeholders; and an ability to transfer information vertically between various scales of monitoring. The strategic plan proposed that an electronic data interface must be standardized to ensure correlation capability and access with other monitoring programs, such as those that are collecting data to do with human health, ecosystem health, and zones. It was intended that ambient air quality information be fed into the data management system from continuous analyzers at both stationary and mobile sites, from laboratory data, and from bio-receptor data. Automated data summaries can then be prepared with the information presented in various formats. Based on the recommendations of the CASA strategic plan, the AAADMS was developed in the spring of 1997. By September of 1997, the AAADMS evolved from the pilot phase to an operational data management system with a Web site as the public interface.