Abstract Description: The Department of the Air Force (DAF) utilizes the Air Program Information Management System (APIMS) for maintaining air emissions data needed to build and perform Air Emissions Inventories (AEIs). To complete the AEI, most installations require field verification of 100% of all air emissions source attributes in APIMS, including both permitted and non-permitted sources.
Many installations have over 1,000 air emissions sources that must be verified annually. The standard approach has been to export a spreadsheet from APIMS and use pen and paper to cross-check the current inventory. This approach is cumbersome and time-consuming and presents opportunities for errors due to legibility and manual data transfer. Overall, it is an outdated approach that our team took steps to modernize.
To improve the annual APIMS data verification and updating process, our team exported data from APIMS to create a Geographic Information System (GIS) layer that includes all air emissions source attributes under each data point. This allows the use of a tablet in the field to easily and efficiently validate existing data. New or removed equipment can be easily identified using the GIS coordinates. As the attributes are validated, the data is exported into our quality control system to ensure the collected data is accurate. After all attributes are validated and confirmed, the data is input into field verification memoranda that summarize all changes. Using this method, changes are easily identified and updated in APIMS.
Each year, utilization of the tablet is improved by implementing new features. New this year, our team added a feature to export a photo log from the tablet, and a dashboard that displays the verification progress for all the sources. Modernization has resulted in data quality improvement and increased efficiency. This allows our team to complete field verifications at more installations with increased accuracy, ensuring higher quality outputs.
