NASA Earth Observatory highlights SERVIR Southeast Asia air quality work

In the blog Grappling with Thailand’s Seasonal Haze, NASA Earth Observatory describes their recent flights to test air quality. 

"In spring 2024, an international field campaign—ASIA-AQ (Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality)—headed to Thailand to take a close look at the haze. During the last two weeks of March 2024, NASA’s DC-8 and Gulfstream III aircraft flew several flights over Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and rural areas surrounding the cities to sample air quality with several sensors. At the same time, satellites observed the haze from above."

In addition to noting the observations from the flights, the blog highlights other NASA activities working to address air quality including SERVIR. 

"NASA teams are also working with partners in the region and the USAID-NASA SERVIR program to develop tools designed to inform people about haze and smoke during the fire season. SERVIR Southeast Asia has worked with the Royal Thai Government’s Pollution Control Department (PCD) to develop the Mekong Air Quality Explorer tool. “This decision support tool combines satellite data from NASA with ground station data and machine-learning analytics to enable monitoring and forecasting of air quality in Thailand,” said Aekkapol Aekakkararungroj, a geospatial manager with SERVIR Southeast Asia.

Another tool called Smoke Watch, developed with assistance from the SERVIR program, can port timely VIIRS observations of fires into a real-time warning system that firefighters have used to pinpoint fires and fight them as quickly as possible, explained the application’s developer Nion Sirimongkollertkul, an environmental engineer at Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna Chiangrai."

You can read the full blog post here.