Under the ENI SEIS II East project "Implementation of the Shared Environmental Information System" principles and practices, experts from the European Environment Agency, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and 4sphere Innova are developing a software on air quality (Raven+) which allows data management, e-reporting and real-time data visualization on the online service of the European Environment Agency and the European Commission, The European Air Quality Index.

On June 16, the experts of EEA, NILU, 4Sfera and the representatives of the Environment Agency of the Republic of Moldova discussed the RAVEN+ features versus the current needs of the Environment Agency as well as the actions immediately necessary to be implemented so that the platform is fully prepared for testing. Also, the Environment Agency is to be practically trained remotely by the end of the project on how to extracting the information from existing databases, convert and load the existing data for the last 3 years on air quality to be processed with the help of RAVEN software.

The index is an interactive map showing the situation of the air quality at the local station, based on five main pollutants which are harmful to human health and the environment: particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), ozone (O3), dioxide nitrogen (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2).

Users can zoom in or search any city or region in Europe to check overall air quality and measurements for each major pollutant. The index shows an overall value for each monitoring station, marked by a colored dot on the map, which corresponds to the lowest rating for any of the five pollutants.

The European Air Quality Index can be accessed here: www.eea.europa.eu  

This collaboration and activities aim to improve the level of accessibility, use and exchange of air quality information to ensure regular environmental assessment and reporting, both at national and regional level in the Eastern Partnership countries.

 Web links covering the event in the Republic of Moldova: Environment Agency of the Republic of Moldova website | Facebook