Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) from the Asian region have continuously increased due to rapid population growth and industrial activities. Several cities in South/South East Asia (S/SEA) have air quality issues, most of which can be attributed to rapid industrialization and urbanization associated with land use/cover changes. Addressing these issues is one of the priorities of the NASA-funded South/Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SARI), which Krishna Vadrevu (ST11) has been leading since 2013.
The international meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, brought together seventy-five different researchers from 13 different countries. The meeting focused on a). Reviewing GHG and SLCP emission estimates and methodologies from different sources in the Asian region; b). Understanding the impact of GHGs and aerosols on local climate, including health; c). Remote sensing methodologies for quantifying pollutants; d). Reviewing different models for characterizing emissions; e). Strengthening information exchange and training activities through effective collaborations. The local hosts were the Vietnam National Space Agency and the Vietnam National University of Engineering and Technology (VNUET). Various presentations highlighted the need for integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches for quantifying emissions. The need for new research methodologies to reduce uncertainties in GHG emission inventories, including training activities on air pollution modeling, was stressed. As a part of meeting outputs, Vadrevu is leading a Special Issue of peer-reviewed papers on air pollution in the Environmental Pollution journal.
Following the meeting, Vadrevu also led a training workshop at the Royal University of Cambodia with the help of 6-different trainers (2-USA, 3-France, and 1-Japan). Sixty-five participants from S/SEA attended the training. The theoretical lectures and hands-on tutorials involved basic and advanced methods using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical remote sensing for forestry, agriculture, and water resource research and applications. Both activities were highly successful and facilitated new collaborations including learning opportunities for several researchers in South/Southeast Asia.
