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A few months ago, the Open Data Climático, carried out by the Spanish Meteorology Agency, starred a large number of news, with headlines such as "70% of Spaniards affected by climate change", "Summers are five weeks longer than they were in the eighties" or "The semi-arid climate advances towards Galicia".
Our planet faces big challenges in the coming years: deforestation, high levels of contamination, melting of the poles, desertification ... All these element endanger the life of the different species that live on the Earth, leading some even to extinction. In addition, it could damage the economic development: if the effects of climate change are not mitigated, the global market could suffer a recession of up to 20% of global GDP, as said by Carmen Parra, Director of the Chair of Solidarity Economy of the Abat Oliba CEU University, based on the Stern Report on the impact of climate change on the economy.
Human beings have the responsibility to try to reverse this situation, and the technology and open data can help us. Providing detailed and up-to-date information helps to raise environment awareness, as well as to seek solutions to climate change and the other environmental challenges that affect us.
Taking advantage of World Environment Day, in datos.gob.es we have wanted to compile some examples of applications that reuse open data generated by public bodies and whose objective is to promote sustainability and environment improvements.
Fight against pollution
Nine out of ten people around the world are exposed to levels of pollution that surpass the security quotas indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO). An increasing number of cities, regions and countries put in place mechanisms to try to limit the amount of pollutant particles and gases emitted. In this sense, we can also find more applications to inform about air or rivers situation in real time.
- airACT. This application, developed by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia together with Ecologistas en Acción and the CSIC, among others, seeks to inform the population about the air quality in real time. Through an alerts system, based on WHO recommendations, users can know main air pollutants levels, as well as the risk they are exposed to.
- Riu Net. In addition to the air we breathe, it is also important to raise awareness about water quality. Riu Net is an interactive educational tool that allows evaluating the ecological status of the rivers and, at the same time, it provide scientific data that can be consulted both by experts and environmental managers and the general public.
Improve waste management
8 million tons of plastics arrive every year to our oceans. To end this situation, it is necessary to promote the reuse and recycling of materials. The applications that show the waste collection points help raise awareness and educate public about the recycling, classification and disposal of waste. Some examples of these applications are:
- Garbage containers in Cáceres. This application help to visualize the location of all containers in the city of Cáceres. The user can filter by types of container (organic, plastics, paper, etc.) to improve the search and locate the closest container.
- CleanSpotApp - Your nearest clean point !. Some waste needs specialized containers (recycling centres). Thanks to applications like CleanSpotApp we can know the closest household waste recycling centre to deposit batteries, electrical appliances, light bulbs, used oil, clothes and shoes, toys, books and school supplies, coffee capsules, etc.
Promote sustainable means of transport
Automobiles account for 83% of transport CO2 emissions. Some applications based on open data seek to avoid or reduce the individual use of private cars and encourage the use of more sustainable means of transport (public transport, bicycles, electric scooters).
- dBizi++. dBizi Users can know, with a frequency of 5-6 minutes, the availability of bicycles in the 16 stations of the city of San Sebastián. In addition, the application informs the user about the feasibility of their journey, using historical and real-time data.
- Puedo circular. This application provides personalized information on the contamination protocols in the city of Madrid. The user only has to enter the license plate of his vehicle in the web / application and will obtain information on the environmental mark that corresponds to the vehicle, the current scenario activated according to the pollution protocol of the city and the effects of this scenario: whether or not you can travel around the city, where you can park or what speed you should keep to reduce the environmental impact.
Fight against noise pollution
We usually forget acoustic pollution when we talk about environment, but its effects can be very harmful to health: it can generate from stress and sleep disorders to loss of attention or cardiovascular diseases. In Spain, at least 9 million people support average levels of 65 decibels, the limit accepted by WHO.
- ComfortUP!:This is a mobile application for citizen collaboration, through which people who are using public spaces can assess the comfort of these places from an acoustic and thermal point of view, based on their own experience. The application also allows observations and measurements of environmental conditions in a selection of city parks.
- Noise Capture: This application support citizen science project whose objective is to register the noise levels listened by the users. In addition to discovering the noise pollution suffered by citizens, it allows us to share this information and contribute to the creation of collaborative noise maps on a voluntary and anonymous basis.
The protection and improvement of the environment is a fundamental issue that affects welfare and social and economic development. Therefore, it must be one of the priorities not only of governments, but also of citizens. Thanks to the open data, and the services created based on them, citizens can be more aware of their environment and act accordingly to reduce their environmental footprint.
Entrevista
Liight App was the winner of Desafío Aporta 2017 with its application to gamify sustainability, encouraging those citizens who make efficient and sustainable use of resources. To this end, activities such as the use of public transport or recycling are rewarded through a virtual currency exchangeable for discounts and direct rewards.
We spoke with Santiago Jiménez and Carlos Rosety, the founder of this initiative, to tell us how they are carrying out this project.
Currently, at what point of Liight App development are you?
Currently, Liight has a product version on both Android and iOS, with the basic functionalities available and sufficient stability and robustness to start with the phase of user acquisition and growth (at the moment close to a thousand downloads in an organic way). Regarding the team, counting on the most advanced technical part covered, we are incorporating new profiles to reinforce the fields of communication, marketing, etc., in order to generate a community with the mission and values of the brand. Our goal is to improve different aspects related to the business plan, the technology-user relation and the client, in order to launch -investing, right now, in marketing- in September-October, coinciding with the "back to school" season.
In which information sources, public or private, is your project based on?
We use different sources to check and validate the veracity of the sustainable actions carried out (the use of the bus, the bike, the train, etc.). At this point, our product is unique, because there are competitors and other alternatives that likewise seek to encourage people to be more sustainable but without any verification, which can cause adverse effects or reward fakes actions such as the use of the vehicle or similar situations. To confirm the reduction of CO2 emissions, the Liight algorithm crosses different parameters obtained through the user's mobile sensors with public data, such as the route, schedules, etc. of the different means of transport (Metro or Bus, for example).
We also use private data sources through the use of APIs under third-party permission and the collaboration with companies such as Ecoembes, among others; and even self-produced data sources collected by Liight's community such as the mapping of areas that did not have an existing digitized database.
Do you think that initiatives such as Desafío Aporta 2017 can help companies and entrepreneurs launch their open data reuse projects? What other initiatives of this kind do you think should be put into practice?
I think yes, accions of this kind help to give visibility and support to startups and solutions that suggest to give value and use these data whose mere storage, if it does not reach this second derivative, would be meaningless. Data analysis and use is a huge opportunity offered by the current moment, where you can sensorize, collect and publish or treat information instantly, very cheap and on a large scale. Data becomes a valuable resource to obtain value. If we return data to society in a treated, clean and useful way, we can achieve a great impact in our cities.
As a user of open data, what challenges have you found when reusing public information? How have you solved those challenges?
Sometimes we miss a standardization, perhaps, regarding the data format, since different homologous institutions (such as town halls or transport services) can have similar proposals regarding the concept but very different in their structure, so you have to adapt the tool in each case and apply correction factors to use them.
In other cases we find that there is a lot of information that is not digitized and therefore does not "exist" for its use, although the tendency is to collect and made data effective. In any case, the most important problem we have found is when there is a data but, for whatever reason, it is not updated or it is incorrect. In areas where accuracy at geolocation or temporal level is not essential, there is no problem. Even as the generation of more data layers progresses, data can be discovered, updated and corrected. But in other cases, for example, knowing exactly what the waiting time for my bus is, the user can assume that the information published is reliable and he can be frustrated if their expectations are not met, not because of technology or the tool but due to the basic information that may be wrong.
What actions do you consider that Spain should prioritize in terms of data provision?
Standardization is, of course, relevant at a city, country and even European level in order to speak the same "language" so any system can be scaled and useful. We know that measures are being taken in this direction, mesures that have been implemented in recent years, which is welcomed and congratulated. Providing quality, up-to-date and accurate data is also important.
At the end, they are resources and they have to fulfill certain characteristics. As with everything, if we build a bridge with a good design, a correct structural calculation and a correct execution, but the base material does not meet the specifications, it will probably come down. Or in the case of a restaurant, if the products and ingredients used are low quality, even when we have a good waitress or kitchen service, and although if we have a great chef, the final product eaten by customer will not be pleased.
Finally, what are your future plans? Are you immersed or have any other open data reuse project in mind?
As of today, in terms of mobility, Liight is operational in the Community of Madrid. Our idea is to deploy the technology that we have developed in other regions and cities where it can also receive a warm reception and impact on the welfare and reduction of pollution. In the field of recycling, we are also working with institutions and companies focused on smart-cites and sustainability, in projects that will see the light in the coming months. We are in a very exciting and demanding moment demanding for the development and growth of our startup, as well as the entire ecosystem, and more specifically within the smart-city sector.
Noticia
The environment is a concern and a matter of general interest for our society. We should not be surprised, therefore, by the numerous initiatives within the universe of open data for the publication of information related to the environment, both internationally and locally. These initiatives cover different aspects of the environment within the competences assigned to government bodies and agencies: natural resource management, biodiversity, air quality, climate and atmospheric information, and many more.
As environmental topics are very diverse, the typology and nature of the data can also be diverse. It is not easy a priori to find homogeneous universal criteria to describe the wide variety of information related to the description of the environment (for example, ranging from the population of a subspecies of cod near Iceland to levels of solar irradiance in an area of Extremadura). Therefore, for clarity, a separation is established between "data on the environment" (any information describing some aspect of the environment in a general sense) and "environmental data" (the second being a subset of the first)
Expressed intuitively, environmental data consists of measurements of physical and chemical magnitudes, usually obtained using specific instrumentation, such as sensors or measuring equipment. In general, this data describes observations (or measurements) whose value must be related at least to the following information:
- Description of the nature of the physical magnitude.
- Spatial and/or geographical dimension.
- Time dimension.
- Unit of measurement.
- Description of the instrumentation.
As regards existing vocabularies for the description of "environmental data", the Semantic Sensor Network Ontology (currently still at draft stage) should be noted. This vocabulary is a joint effort between the W3C Consortium and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Also worth noting is the possibility of applying the RDF Data Cube vocabulary, although perhaps its use cannot be generalized in all cases.
At European level, the European Environment Agency (EEA) provides a very comprehensive catalogue of data in direct collaboration with Member States and other initiatives such as the Copernicus programme. This program is managed inter alia by the European Space Agency ESA) and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). This programme, on the one hand, captures environmental data via satellites and sensor systems that measure physical, maritime, climatic and atmospheric physical magnitudes and, on the other hand, provides this information through free and open services for the general public and European companies.
In the last edition of the international open data conference: IODC 16 (International Open Data Conference) held in Madrid last October, the environment was one of the central issues, with a slot specifically dedicated to discussing advances and opportunities for the use of open data for understanding the climate globally, biodiversity resource management and other related issues. This is an unequivocal sign that the environment has acquired strategic relevance in international agendas for the opening up of data.
Evento
From 22 to 23 June, Valladolid hosts the 1st International Forum on Urban Forestry in Mediterranean Cities, a meeting organized by the LIFE + Quick Urban Forest project to share and discuss with researchers, urban managers and technicians about techniques and advances in planting in degraded urban areas in Mediterranean climates; while social projects and initiatives on urban forestry are show as well.
The program includes four sessions: one on social approach, another on local politics and two technical sessions, of which one is dedicated to monitoring and intelligent data analysis. The aim is to show attendees the state of sensor technology, the importance of big data and Internet of Things and its application to interpret the results.
The forum is not only designed for technicians responsible for forestry management or researchers, the organization has also invited experts and private companies specialized in data intelligence and regional associations and members of other similar projects.