This map shows the distribution of nearly 4,000 air emissions sources over a 40 X 40 kilometer region of the Netherlands.

The TNO provides solutions that are oriented towards technological innovation, enabling its clients around the world to benefit from increased competitive power.  It is one of Europe's largest R & D organizations.

On behalf of government organizations and industry, the MEP assesses potential environmental impact from air emissions.  Software developed to implement the "New National Model," however, requires hours or days to run.  This precludes its use for interactive planning, discovery, and insight.

Quantitative Decisions was engaged by the TNO-MEP to develop methods enabling decision makers immediately to see the consequences of the options available to them.  To do this, we analyzed the modeling process and made strategic recommendations for an improved software architecture.  The thrust of the recommendations was (a) to deploy model interfaces within a GIS environment rather than building interfaces within the C or Fortran code used for writing the models themselves and (b) to speed up model code by using approximate solutions of appropriate quality.

As an example, we evaluated Fortran code for computing regional deposition from air emissions sources, identified several ways to speed it up, implemented those speed-ups, and created an interface to a desktop GIS in use at TNO.  The speedup reduced model times from hours to minutes, provided more reliable information to the modeler, and enabled immediate visualization of the results.