Air pollution is a silent killer
Beijing has a serious air pollution problem that afflicts Beijing for almost 20 years. Air pollution is a silent killer which is the fourth-largest cause of death worldwide. According to WHO, over 7 million deaths due to the exposure of air pollution each year (WHO, 2018).
How technology and data will help to deal with the air pollution problem?
As the former mayor of New York City Bloomberg said about air pollution: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it and you can’t fix it.” It is important to measure air pollution and differentiate the types of air pollution. Internet of Things could be used for monitoring the air quality, that IoT devices sense the environment several times a minute and deliver an average value (GSMA, 2018). Google provided street view cars with sensors that can gather data on nine different pollutants which makes possible to tell the types of air pollution (Stockton, 2017). On the other hand, it is important to get a real time pollution notification not only city wide but also in a district or block details. Having air quality monitors in each streets and report the real time air quality to a mobile app, so that people can check it through their phone and decide which area they can aviod.
With better sensors and more data, people can understand the patterns of pollution. Using data and maps to analyze the possible origin of air pollution, people can have a clear understanding of the source of air pollution. Therefore, governments will make more efficient strategic plans.
Resourse:
https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/
https://www.gsma.com/iot/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/iot_clean_air_02_18.pdf
