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Collective awareness platform for outdoor air pollution (hackAIR)

Project details

Status: Concluded

Project period: 2016–2018

Principal: EU (688363)

Coordinating institution: NILU

The overall objective of hackAIR is to develop and pilot test an open platform that will enable communities of citizens to easily set up air quality monitoring networks and engage their members in measuring and publishing outdoor air pollution levels, leveraging the power of online social networks, mobile and open hardware technologies, and engagement strategies. The hackAIR platform will enable the collection of data from:

  • measurements from existing air quality stations and open data
  • user-generated sky-depicting images (either publicly available geo-tagged and time-stamped images posted through social media platforms, or images captured by users
  • low-cost open hardware devices easily assembled by citizens using commercial off-the-shelf parts

A data fusion algorithm and reasoning services will be developed for synthesising heterogeneous air quality data into air quality-aware personalised services to citizens.

The hackAIR platform will be co-created with the users, and offered through:

  • a web application that communities of citizens will be able to install and customize
  • a mobile app that citizens can use to get convenient access to easy-to-understand air quality information, contribute to measurements by an open sensor, or by taking and uploading sky-depicting photos, and receive personalised air quality-aware information on their everyday activities

The hackAIR platform will be tested in two pilot locations, with the direct participation of a grassroots NGO with >400.000 members and a health association with >19.000 members. Appropriate strategies and tools will be developed and deployed for increasing user engagement and encouraging behavioural change.

The usability and effectiveness of the hackAIR platform, and its social and environmental impact will be assessed. A sustainability and exploitation strategy will pave the way for the future availability of the hackAIR toolkit, community and website, and explore opportunities for commercial exploitation.

NILU led the pilot study in Norway and the development of the data fusion tool.

Updated: 17.09.2021

Collective awareness platform for outdoor air pollution has 10 publications at NILU:

Public Perception of Urban Air Quality Using Volunteered Geographic Information Services

Grossberndt, Sonja; Schneider, Philipp; Liu, Hai-Ying; Fredriksen, Mirjam; Castell, Nuria; Syropoulou, Panagiota; Bartonova, Alena

2020

Opportunities and barriers for microsensor systems for air quality: practical experiences from Oslo

Bartonova, Alena; Castell, Nuria; Schneider, Philipp; Dauge, Franck Rene; Grossberndt, Sonja; Lepioufle, Jean-Marie; Liu, Hai-Ying; Fredriksen, Mirjam; Høiskar, Britt Ann Kåstad

2019

Air pollution: can subjective perception be related to objective measures?

Bartonova, Alena; Grossberndt, Sonja; Castell, Nuria

2019

Citizens and sensors for air quality. NILU’s activities 2012-2019.

Bartonova, Alena; Castell, Nuria; Dauge, Franck Rene; Fredriksen, Mirjam; Grossberndt, Sonja; Liu, Hai-Ying; Schneider, Philipp

2019

Urban Air Quality Perception

Grossberndt, Sonja; Castell, Nuria; Fredriksen, Mirjam; Schneider, Philipp; Bartonova, Alena

2019

Using low-cost air quality sensors for personal exposure assessment

Schneider, Philipp; Castell, Nuria; Bartonova, Alena

2018

Mapping urban air quality using a network of low-cost sensors: A data assimilation approach

Schneider, Philipp; Castell, Nuria; Bartonova, Alena; Lahoz, William A.

2018

hackAIR: Towards raising awareness about air quality in Europe by developing a collective online platform

Kosmidis, Evangelos; Syropoulou, Panagiota; Tekes, Stavros; Schneider, Philipp; Spyromitros-Xioufis, Eleftherios; Riga, Marina; Charitidis, Polychronis; Moumtzidou, Anastasia; Papadopoulos, Symeon; Vrochidis, Stefanos; Kompatsiaris, Ioannis; Stavrakas, Ilias; Hloupis, George; Loukidis, Andronikos; Kourtidis, Konstantinos; Georgoulias, Aristeidis K.; Alexandri, Georgia

2018