May 12, 2018 Journal article Open Access

hackAIR: Towards Raising Awareness about Air Quality in Europe by Developing a Collective Online Platform

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

Although air pollution is one of the most significant environmental factors posing a threat to human health worldwide, air quality data are scarce or not easily accessible in most European countries. The current work aims to develop a centralized air quality data hub that enables citizens to contribute to air quality monitoring. In this work, data from official air quality monitoring stations are combined with air pollution estimates from sky-depicting photos and from low-cost sensing devices that citizens build on their own so that citizens receive improved information about the quality of the air they breathe. Additionally, a data fusion algorithm merges air quality information from various sources to provide information in areas where no air quality measurements exist.