Introduction

Dublin Pollution Visualizer is an Open Source project that allows visualization real-time data about traffic and Nitrogen Dioxide pollution around Dublin, Ireland. It is designed to work together with Dublin Pollution API, the backend, and Dublin Pollution Piper, which is the application that gathers the data. All of them are designed to be easily reconfigurable, so they can be ported to other cities easily. Note that a MySQL database is also required in order to store the data.

Sources

Information is gathered using two different kinds sources, both of them gathering data in real-time.

The first one is the TomTom API, which provides information about traffic. It does not hold an historic but provides very updated informational, usually within a one-minute offset. It has to be noted, however, that an API KEY is required in order to query it. At the same time, it includes a free and a premium plan.

The second one is a set of sensors deployed around Dublin by the European Environment Agency. The sensors are deployed all around Europe and provide updated an useful information about air status, including not only nitrogen dioxide but also other pollutants like ozones, carbon monoxide. The data is updated every hour for almost all sensors, however this frequency may vary.

Why Nitrogen Dioxide?

According to epidemiological studies directed by the World Health Organization reduced lung function growth and symptoms of bronchitis in asthmatic children increase in association with long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide.

Other sources claim that small day-to-day variations in NO₂ can cause changes in lung function and respiratory conditions, eye irritation and increased visits to emergency departments and hospital admissions for respiratory issues.

It is also very easily correlated to traffic, so it presents a good opportunity for this kind of analysis. Feel free to fork the project and experiment with other pollutants!

Authors

The complete project has been done by Marc Solé Fonte - msolefonte. However, multiple libraries have been used in the process. Special thanks to Themewagon for the template and TomTom and the European Environment Agency for the available data and sensors.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.