Christa Hasenkopf, PhDCo-Founder & CEO

christa@openaq.org@Open_AQ

The OpenAQ Story:Combining Open Data + Community

for Impact

Picture courtesy NASA

AIT SeminarBangkok, Thailand6 March 2017

storyoutline

1: Air Inequality2: Platform + Community3: How to Get Involved

airinequality (1/3) Unequal access to clean air

1 out of 8 deaths are due to air pollution (WHO, 2014)

airinequality (2/3)

WHO 2016 OAP Database + World Bank Data

airinequality (3/3)

LALondon

Mexico City

Houston

Beijing

New Delhi

Rio de Janeiro

# of papers for the Top 10 = 41

‘Top 10’ Polluted Cities1. Ahwaz, Iran2. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia3. Sanadaj, Iran4. Ludhiana, India5. Quetta, Pakistan6 Kermanshah, Iran7. Peshawar, Pakistan8. Gaborone, Botswana9. Yasouj, Iran10. Kanpur, India

Hasenkopf, et al. (2016)

knowledgegap

Ambient PM2.5 Levels ➔

RR

of M

ort

alit

y ➔

Lots of Studies(from

EU + US)

Fewer Studies + Proxy Data

?

A simplistic adaptation from Burnett et al. (2014)

opendataimpact

7 out of 10 of the most cited large-cohort studies on

impact of air pollution on health in Web of Science used open data provided by a

government source

Photo Credit: Lauren KnappGraphs from: openaq.orgUlaanbaatar, Mongolia: 2011-2013

opendataimpact

PM10 PM2.5

Beijing, China Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

opendatalandscape real-time, government

• ~70 Countries• Ground monitoring• PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, O3• 5-8 million data points per day• Disparate formats, some

temporarily exist

opendataempowers

Low-Cost Sensors/Satellites

Public Health Policy + Research

Public Engagement (e.g. apps)

Media

Educational Activities

Open, Transparent

Standard Data Layer

Disparate Public AQ Data

Collected Across the World

existingaggregators real-time, government

From: aqicn.org

No real-time, historical programmatic access to physical air quality data at a station-level with attribution back to source.

openaq

Open Source

Open RT + Historical Data + Programmatic Access

Community-Driven

platformstructure

openaq.org

openaqfetch

An open data community + platform providing programmatic, transparent, access to historical + real-time air quality data in a universal format:

• PM10, PM2.5, BC, O3, CO, NO2, SO2

• government sources, research-grade sources

• 35,359,733 total measurements, ~200,000added daily

• 4,700+ monitored stations in 43 countries

• All open-source! (github.com/openaq)

From: openaq.org

demotime

People Used the OpenAQ Platform and Wanted to Connect!

as of January 10, 2017

500,000API Requests

in past 30 days

700+Research orgs

have visited

140Slack Channel

Members

Platform accessed by 1526 cities in 122 countries

opendataempowers

Low-Cost Sensors/Satellites

Public Health Policy + Research

Public Engagement (e.g. apps)

Media

Educational Activities

Open, Transparent

Standard Data Layer

Disparate Public AQ Data

Collected Across the World

policyapplications

Proposals: Open-Source alert system that pushes out alerts via email or text, usable in any city and for locally-specified AQ levels (1-UNICEF)

Interest in using OpenAQ platform to calculate faster annual average values for cities around the world.

researchactivities

>700 universities have accessed the OpenAQ platform since August 2015. Source: Google Analytics

Examples

Other: Researchers have included OpenAQ as a component for proposals for citizen science and satellite data retrievals: 3 NASA; 1 NSF

Aerostate uses our platform as an input to their AQ forecasting model. They also test their model output against data accessed from our platform.

educationalactivities

Mike Hannigan’s group at Univ of Colorado have developed an ‘open-source’ classes on low-cost sensors + open data (including from OpenAQ).

Brown Univ students decided upon using the OpenAQ platform for machine-learning forecasting project.

Brandon Boor of Purdue has his civ eng students use OpenAQ platform to do indoor AQ analysis in different cities around the world.

apps+chatbotsAmrit Sharma, IndiaDeveloper• App • FB bot

www.facebook.com/smokeybot www.facebook.com/HawaBadlo

opensourcework

dolugen.github.io/openaq-browser

Data Exploration Tool

Python pkg: py-openaq

github.com/dhhagan/py-openaq

R pkg: ropenaq

github.com/ropenscilabs/ropenaq/

David HaganBoston, USGhem EngGrad Student

Dolugen BuraaldaUlaanbaatar, MongoliaSoftware Developer

Maëlle SalmonBarcelona, SpainStatistician

mediawork

communitystatements

buildingconnectionsOn Slack: openaq-slackin.herokuapp.com/

On Twitter: @open_aq

On Medium: medium.com/@openaq

On GitHub: github.com/openaq/

openaqworkshopsConvene local communities to brainstorm ways to use open data to fight air inequality. • A great excuse for sectors working on

different aspects of fighting air inequality to come together.

• Accomplish and add to OpenAQ Community Wishlist – many communities facing the same or similar issues.

• Share other open-source tools and effective practices to prevent reinventing the wheel from place to place.

DelhiOpenAQ,Nov2016

UBOpenAQ,Nov2015

communitywishlist• Customizable, open-source public alert system à

email or text

• Open-source, instrument-independent alert system for ‘down’ equipment

• Wrapper that converts AQ values to various AQI’s

• Open-source air quality app

• Statistical QA/QC analysis of RT vs historical.

gettinginvolved• Create or solve a GitHub Issue (or email us)• Mention a new data source• Better yet, write the code to grab that source!

• Help with the backend• Hold a workshop or invite us to do a workshop

• Play with the data, the code, and other projects!

• Talk with us on Slack!

opendataempowers

Low-Cost Sensors/Satellites

Public Health Policy + Research

Public Engagement (e.g. apps)

Media

Educational Activities

Open, Transparent

Standard Data Layer

Disparate Public AQ Data

Collected Across the World

thankyou

• The entire OpenAQ Community!

Contact us: openaq.org | christa@openaq.org | @open_aq

• You, for your attention! (What ways can we collaborate?)• Our organizational partners and sponsors