Lidar system for air pollution monitoring over urban area

The atmospheric environmental situation over urban area of large city is determined by complex combination of anthropogenic pollution and meteorological factors. The efficient way to provide three-dimensional mapping of gaseous pollutants over wide areas is utilization of lidar systems employing tunable narrowband transmitters. The paper presented describes activity of RRC ''Kurchatov Institute'' in field of lidar atmospheric monitoring. The project ''Mobile Remote Sensing System Based on Tunable Laser Transmitter for Environmental Monitoring'' is developed under financial support of International Scientific and Technology Center (Moscow). The objective of the project is design, construction and field testing of DIAL-technique system. The lidar transmitter consists of excimer laser pumping dye laser, BBO crystal frequency doubler, and scanning flat mirror. Sulfur dioxide and atomic mercury have been selected as pollutants for field tests of lidar system under development. Recent large increase in Moscow traffic stimulated taking into consideration also remote sensing of lower troposphere ozone because of photochemical smog problem. The status of project is briefly discussed. The current activity includes also collecting of environmental data relevant to lidar remote sensing. Main attention is paid to pollutant concentration levels over Moscow city and Moscow District areas.