Scaling This Effort
Routine availability of high-resolution air quality data in all major cities could have transformative implications for environmental management, air pollution and health, science and civic engagement, and policy. By highlighting localized pollution hotspots, these data may identify new opportunities for pollution control. Street-level air quality data can complement, challenge, and validate other diverse air quality datasets, including regulatory monitoring data, chemical transport model outputs, land-use regression predictions, and remotely-sensed observations.
Through combination with personal GPS data on smartphone applications, rich ‘personal exposure analytics’ become possible, which could enhance epidemiological studies and inform personal behavior – much as real-time traffic data now informs individual driving patterns. Broader societal consequences of the public awareness enabled by spatially extensive monitoring and high-resolution pollution maps might include shifts in urban land-use decisions, regulatory actions, and in the political economy of environmental “riskscapes.”
Why Oakland?
Oakland is home to half a million people of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds. West Oakland children younger than five years old are hospitalized for asthma twice as often as any other population in Alameda county. A mix of pollution from several major interstates, the fifth busiest port in the country, and industrial and Superfund sites affect the local environment and health of residents. New methods to measure how air pollution concentrations vary within cities and communities can provide insights applicable to atmospheric science, urban planning, pollution mitigation, environmental justice, and public awareness. The region also represents a unique opportunity to put environmental data to work. With progressive local leadership and a galvanized community, Oakland is poised to seek solutions to a number of social justice concerns affecting quality of life and improving city resiliency in service of a thriving city for all.
The State of Air Monitoring
States are required to monitor and control levels of air pollution under the Clean Air Act. To assess if air quality is meeting – or exceeding – public health standards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relies on monitoring stations across the country delivering regional snapshots of air quality. The fixed monitoring network is designed for air quality regulation, but doesn't give a detailed picture of a community or neighborhood such that people can get a real sense of what air pollution is in their immediate surroundings. Highly-localized data about emissions contributing to climate change is even more limited. Scientists fill in knowledge gaps using predictive models using this limited available data. Aclima’s mobile sensing platform on Street View cars complements existing stationary air measurement efforts, like those in Oakland, by introducing a new layer of environmental data about air pollution at the street level.
Aclima and Google’s Partnership
In 2011, Aclima and Google began working together to characterize the indoor environment, producing one of the largest data sets for the indoor environment in the world. The network spans 21 Google offices around the globe and processes 500 million data points daily about indoor environmental quality. Starting in 2014, Aclima and Google Earth Outreach partnered to map air quality across cities by integrating Aclima’s sensing platform on Google Street View cars. To date, we’ve collected more than 80,000 miles and millions of environmental data points about some of the largest metropolitan areas in California. Together, Google and Aclima are bringing a new class of tools to transform how we manage natural resources.
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About Aclima
Aclima delivers environmental intelligence through sensor networks to improve human health and planetary health. We combine leading-edge sensing technology, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to take the real-time pulse of the invisible world around us. Translating real-time data into actionable insights, Aclima transforms how we understand and manage our buildings, cities, and industries to create a more resilient, healthy, and thriving world. Learn more at aclima.io.
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0ee6a3b4-e21e-4cf2-86ee-ecc446d4558a
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/62949c45-e289-4ced-9c3d-622b3c72e403
Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9a83c566-127a-4470-8196-c1fdb02fe27c
Jessica Lass Aclima (415) 729-4565 jessica.lass@aclima.io
