By provincial legislation, the City of Ottawa’s mandate is to provide more than 100 services to its residents and businesses, including policing, water, transit, garbage and recycling, sewers, fire and paramedics.
The City has 4 departments and two offices with a requirement for the air quality information service:
Corporate Services where the Public Information Division issues heat and smog warnings; and the IT service branch which will extend its expertise to the air quality GIS realm.
Infrastructure services and community sustainability provide planning and development services to communities. Air quality concerns surface often in the planning process. Monitoring the impacts of planning decisions on air quality will be possible once the integrated air quality-health impacts tool is operational.
Community and Protective Services needs air quality and urban heat information with respect to population health protection issues.
Public Works and Services dealing with public transit options, which are directly related to the reduction of air pollutants policy. The monitoring variations and impacts of transportation on the air quality regarding the polluting sources are of essential interest.
