Measurements from the London Air Quality Network are now appearing on the EU-sponsored Air Quality in Europe web site (Air Quality in Europe website)

The web site has been established as part of the CITEAIR project, the aim of which is to provide the public with easily understandable and comparable air quality information across European cities. A set of common air quality indices has been developed, which display pollution levels on a scale from 0 (‘very good’) to 100 (‘very bad’).

The web site currently displays near real time air quality information from around 60 European cities, now including London. King’s ERG supplies hourly data to the site operators in France from a large number of monitoring sites across London. These are aggregated into one index value per pollutant representing roadside locations and another for background locations.

Air quality during past years is also described by a separate index. This aims provide a general overview of the air quality situation in a given city through comparison with standards and objectives defined by European directives.

Ruth Calderwood from the City of London, who supported this development, said "I'm very grateful to King’s ERG for arranging and managing the addition of data to the Citeair web site, and to Defra for providing the funding. It is very useful to be able to compare London's air quality to that in other European Cities at a quick glance."

Item date 27/10/2009