Open access to air quality data critical to tackling pollution

NEW DELHI: Access to reliable and standardised air quality data is critical for effective action to reduce air pollution. The report, Open Air Quality Data: The Global State of Play’ by OpenAQ, a Washington DC based international NGO, released on Thursday reveals the huge gaps that exist in access to air quality data—in just over half of the 212 countries examined for the report, the government does not produce any air quality data for major pollutants. The authors acknowledge that while data is not the solution to air pollution it is the critical piece of information that underpins all action to address air pollution.
“Basic access to air quality data is the first step to improve the air we breathe,” said Christa Hasenkopf, the atmospheric scientist who founded OpenAQ.

OpenAQ’s mission is to aggregate and harmonize open air quality data across the globe and to build an ecosystem of people across sectors and geographies to use these open data to fight the unequal access to clean air to breathe – air inequality.

Only 38 per cent of countries share real-time air quality data, even if not in a fully open form. The remaining 62 per cent represent total population of 2.1 billion people. “We can’t solve the problem of poor air quality, without first understanding how big of a problem it is,” said Rebecca Garland, Principal Researcher at The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa’s national research council.

The lack of any government data in 109 countries, overwhelmingly poor developing countries, presents a major obstacle in developing any programme or effort to improve air quality. The fact that 62% of countries that have a government system of producing air quality data and do not provide access to it hampers efforts by citizens and civil society to undertake measures that can help improve air quality.

“Providing access to fully open data, governments can enable the power of civil society - from scientists to policy analysts to activists to tackle the problem together. This will unlock the maximum potential and impact of government data, encourage innovation, and mobilise communities to act,” said Hasenkopf.

Air pollution is the biggest public health challenge that confronts the world— outdoor air pollution is responsible for an estimated 4.2 million deaths every year. Despite the high numbers—2.7 million people die each from Ebola, HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined and multiples of the current level of COVID-19 fatalities—nearly 585,000 worldwide.

This information vacuum is preventing people from demanding action from their governments to tackle the biggest environmental risk to health and changing their own behaviour. OpenAQ analysed 500 million data points from 11,000 air monitoring stations in 93 countries to compare the number of air pollution monitoring stations with levels of PM2.5 and found that the greater the number of stations, the lower the pollution levels.

Resources are an important factor that can determine government expenditure in air quality monitoring measurements. Given this it is important to identify investments that would benefit the most number of people. The report suggests that investing government air quality in just 13 countries including Ethiopia, Pakistan, Kenya, Algeria, Sudan, would affect one billion person.

Support from wealthier nations and individuals is lacking. Globally, it is estimated that more than $150 bn is invested each year by philanthropic foundations. However, foundation funding on outdoor air quality represents just $1 in every $5,000 (0.02%) of this total ($30m in 2018).

The report calls for linking overseas development funds to open data and air pollution.

The study also found that if 30 governments, including India, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil increased the public access to air quality data, it would impact 4.4 billion persons.

The research is being supported by scientists at NASA, who use the OpenAQ system. Combining NASA’s satellite data of air pollution with OpenAQ’s system “has the potential to bring air quality information to everyone in the world.”

"Removing the hurdles of formats, cumbersome access issues, and variations in way data is presented by various countries, OpenAQ makes it easier for the public, researchers, and even public bodies to understand the geographical patterns in air quality over time,” said Sarath Guttikunda of UrbanEmissions.Info, an India-based independent research research group.