Europe-wide Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting

GAF AG, Germany, has been awarded a contract by the European Commission to develop "obsAIRve". In its role as consortium leader, this project will involve GAF together with the partners T-Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Umweltbundesamt (Austria) designing and developing a new air quality system for the European public.

It will provide the first susainable Europe-wide service for air quality monitoring and forecasting supporting the European "Global Monitoring for Environment and Security" (GMES) initiative. This project will serve the European citizen with comprehensible information products tailored to his needs.

Air pollution directly affects the health and quality of life of human beings - on local, regional and global levels. Hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year in Europe are caused by fine particles in the air. In addition air pollution is responsible for the formation of harmful trace gases like ozone (the so called summer smog) and can cause acid rain.

Monitoring and forecasting of air quality are essential for the prevention and avoidance of risks, as well as for the provision of warnings. Reliable air quality forecasts covering periods of up to 3 days are now possible by combining satellite based and in situ observation data using statistical computations and numerical models. "obsAIRve" will apply results obtained from Europe's superior air quality forecast systems. This will ensure one uniform European air quality service providing real-time and user-friendly data across Europe.

The main intended usergroups are citizens, the health and leisure sector as well as public authorities. "obsAIRve" will disseminate air quality information via dedicated web portals and mobile applications using T-Systems ICT infrastructure. The information will enrich existing services such as weather and environmental portals. Additionally, individual notifications will be available to specific user groups on request. This enables people at risk to behave according to environmental conditions.

"obsAIRve" intends to bridge the gap between research results of GMES related projects and the European public. The awareness of the citizens for environmental issues and activities of the European Commission shall be increased by setting up dedicated marketing campaigns at the European level.
"obsAIRve" is part of the European "GMES" initiative. The project will initially be financed by the European Commission as a pilot project for a period of three years.