[okfn-discuss] OKFN & Environment Data

Thu Oct 18 14:30:13 UTC 2012

http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2012-October/008721.html
(rearranged)
> I am very interested in opening up environment data, specifically air
> quality [AQ] data.

¡Yo también! see
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2012-October/008715.html

> In Spain accessing air quality data is quite tedious. I collected
> information on the situation in other countries like UK and in
> general, from what I've been able to explore, accessing information
> on air quality in general is possible through the web of autonomous
> regions and municipalities in Spain, and official sites in countries
> through specific websites for UK. Also, there exists an european
> database, AirBase [2], which provides information until 2011 at the
> European level, and some interfaces that allow reuse this data from
> other applications, mainly web map services. These interfaces are
> listed on The Data Hub [3].

Have you looked @ the JRC's ENSEMBLE

http://ensemble.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

? Though apparently formally a MIC project, it seems (based on a quite
brief recent conversation with Stefano Galmarini (CC:ed) that ENSEMBLE
could be used for AQ data sharing more broadly. (He can perhaps
comment on that.)

> Talking about this issue with some scientists and organizations
> working with these data, they tell me that usually they get the data
> using the websites of the air quality agencies, sometimes scraping,
> and in some cases they contact them directly in order to recieve
> data in machine-readable format.

That's how we do it in the US--very last-millenium :-(

> In my opinion, there is much room for improvement in this area to
> facilitate accessing this information not only to be used by experts

yes

> but making it easy for general use applying the open data principles
> and the open source and latest Internet technologies.

and yes. This is especially important for regulatory models, the
inputs and outputs of which should be accessble to concerned citizens,
NGOs (esp metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), or whatever term
of art you use in Europe), and local/regional governments (which are
quite underfunded and understaffed in the US).

> As proof of concept of reuse of the EEA data, here you can see the
> european air quality network on the open source tool CartoDB:

> * https://fpedrera.cartodb.com/tables/airbase_v6_stations/embed_map
> (Classified by type of station: Background, Traffic, Industrial).

> The information can be queried also very easily through its SQL API:
> http://fpedrera.cartodb.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20airbase_v6_stations%20where%20station_city=%27MADRID%27%20and%20type_of_station=%27Background%27

> I am also a bit involved in the AirQualityEgg [4] initiative through the
> Internet of Things Madrid group [5]. It's quite similar to that mentioned
> by Rafael Pezzi, and the data from the sensors will be pushed to COSM,
> although there are maybe better alternatives for open publication.

> Rafael, maybe you can put an eye on this project since some issues
> you'll face are maybe solved or at least discussed. Feel free to
> contact me if you want more information.

> [1] http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/
> [2] http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/airbase
> [3] http://thedatahub.org/es/dataset/discomap

and http://thedatahub.org/en/dataset/discomap

> [4] http://airqualityegg.wikispaces.com/AirQualityEgg
> [5] http://www.meetup.com/iotmadrid/

> It's great to see it moves around the OKFN, so count me in if a
> specific list or workgroup (through the existing open climate group
> or other mechanisms).

As previously mentioned,

http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-discuss/2012-October/008715.html

I am also interested, though for unfortunate US-ideological reasons, It
Would Be Nice to omit the 'climate' tag from the group. (It would also
be more accurate--there are lots of environmental problems, and even
more environmental datasets--that are not *directly* climatological.)
This seems ironic, since I am basically 'a climate guy' (my current
project involves integrating N2O, a GHG, into a regional-scale AQ model,
CMAQ). But until I'm able to emigrate (my grandparents are from the
Azores, apparently that's not enough), I hafta cope with US politics,
and, as you are probably aware, AQ modeling is inevitably intertwined
with politics (via regulation and litigation).

FWIW, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>