School of Design Studies Pollution With Computers

The Harvard School of Design is using computers to study the sources and distribution of air pollution in an attempt to prove that computer maps can be used to plan air pollution control programs.

Computers, fed the needed facts, have drawn construction plans and highway schemes, but "Harvard is the only place in the country where computer graphics are being used to map air pollution," an undergraduate working on the project said yesterday.

The project, under the direction of Howard T. Fisher '26, professor of City and Regional Planning, is being financed by a U.S. Public Health demonstration grant. Workers include faculty members and students in the School of Design as well as a few undergraduates.

Computer Maps

Computers can draw maps combining information from population census districts and air sampling stations. Without such maps, it would be impossible to see the relationship between population and pollution.

The population of an area under study is crucial to know, Donald S. Shepard '69 said, because a level of pollution which might be insignificant in an unpopulated area becomes serious in a highly-populated one.

Computer maps can also combine pollution data with facts about distribution of income groups, and location of housing and industry.

'Air Quality Regions'

These maps are needed to define "air quality regions," where wastes from one city's industry and population influence the atmosphere of another city, explained John C. Goodrich, third-year graduate student in city planning.

The Federal government, which is now setting up air control agencies for specific districts, must have a way of determining where the boundaries of each district should fall. For example, Goodrich added, Providence, R.I. might be within the Boston pollution sphere.