Dear all, Thank you for all these thoughts and links! There is also one thing to add:
I would also like to draw your attention to another related initiative. My colleagues from the Centre for Sustainable Communications at the Royal Institute for Technology KTH have startred http://opensustainability.info/ as an initiative to promote open sustainability data and created the database http://footprinted.org. They would like to reboot this initiative: have an independent platform where people working on sustainability issues can meet and work towards open shared formats/tools/solutions together instead of separately on their own. They could contribute with a lot of contacts in the field and bringing this under the umbrella of the OKFN. I look forward to more news and a possible call / meeting to clarify further steps in this area. On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:33 AM, Félix Pedrera García < felix.pedr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > I am very interested in opening up environment data, specifically air > quality data. It's great to see it moves around the OKFN, so count me in if > a specific list or workgroup (through the existing open climate group or > other mechanisms). > > In Spain accessing air quality data is quite tedious. I collected > information on the situation in other countries like UK and in general, > from what I've been able to explore, accessing information on air quality > in general is possible through the web of autonomous regions and > municipalities in Spain, and official sites in countries through specific > websites for UK. Also, there exists an european database, AirBase [2], > which provides information until 2011 at the European level, and some > interfaces that allow reuse this data from other applications, mainly web > map services. These interfaces are listed on The Data Hub [3]. > > The problems that I have appreciated with this information are mainly: > > * I didn't find an easy access for updated information in near real time, > although it is published on websites, it is seems it is not available > through mechanisms that promote reuse (an API or direct links to raw data). > * The format of the data is not homogeneous, for example for the city of > Madrid, the data format for the validated information is different from the > pre-validated data and in turn different from that offered by other > regions. There is also disparity in formats between countries. This makes > it difficult to consistently treat the information independently of the > provider (municipality, region, country or European source). Other > standard formats that can be applied, as DEM, XML or NetCDF are generally > too complex for citizens which are mainly familiar with CSV or XLS. JSON or > GeoJSON are also more suitable for web/mobile developers. > * Although the information is accessible via the Internet, often it > requires manual intervention (fill forms, receive data in email, etc..) > that makes it more difficult to be treated, although it can always be > approached using scraping techniques. > * Proprietary technologies (like Microsoft file formats or software ESRI) > are used to support this information. There are open source alternatives. > * In general, the information available is technical oriented rather than > for general reuse. > > Talking about this issue with some scientists and organizations working > with these data, they tell me that usually they get the data using the > websites of the air quality agencies, sometimes scraping, and in some cases > they contact them directly in order to recieve data in machine-readable > format. > > In my opinion, there is much room for improvement in this area to > facilitate accessing this information not only to be used by experts but > making it easy for general use applying the open data principles and the > open source and latest Internet technologies. > > As proof of concept of reuse of the EEA data, here you can see the > european air quality network on the open source tool CartoDB: > > * https://fpedrera.cartodb.com/tables/airbase_v6_stations/embed_map. > (Classified by type of station: Background, Traffic, Industrial). > > The information can be queried also very easily through its SQL API: > > * > http://fpedrera.cartodb.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20airbase_v6_stations%20where%20station_city=%27MADRID%27%20and%20type_of_station=%27Background%27 > > I am also a bit involved in the AirQualityEgg [4] initiative through the > Internet of Things Madrid group [5]. It's quite similar to that mentioned > by Rafael Pezzi, and the data from the sensors will be pushed to COSM, > although there are maybe better alternatives for open publication. > > Rafael, maybe you can put an eye on this project since some issues you'll > face are maybe solved or at least discussed. Feel free to contact me if you > want more information. > > Kind regards, > > -- > Félix Pedrera > Twitter > @fpedrera > > [1] http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/ > [2] http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/airbase > [3] http://thedatahub.org/es/dataset/discomap > [4] http://airqualityegg.wikispaces.com/AirQualityEgg > [5] http://www.meetup.com/iotmadrid/ > > > 2012/10/12 Velichka Dimitrova <velichka.dimitr...@okfn.org> > >> Hi all, >> >> Very happy to hear about this conversation getting started. >> >> Indeed we planned to have a sprint about energy this fall - >> http://sprints.okfnlabs.org/energy/ - which we have postponed until the >> beginning of next year. We are looking into clearly defining a topic what >> we are going to work on, preparing the data and background research in >> advance. >> >> A revived Open Climate Science working group as well as social scientists >> with environmental focus from the Open Economics working >> group<http://openeconomics.net/> could >> assist in this. >> >> Please let us know if: >> >> - If you have any ideas about a topic, which could be addressed in >> the sprint or >> - you would like to participate in the current discussion around the >> theme of energy subsidies >> >> Looking forward to hear from you! >> >> Velichka >> >> >> >> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 12:31 PM, James Smith <ja...@floppy.org.uk>wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> On Friday, 12 October 2012 at 12:23, Jonathan Gray wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 1:18 PM, James Smith <ja...@floppy.org.uk>wrote: >>> >>> I can't speak for AMEE (any more), but this is unlikely to come from >>> within the company. Adoption of the data by external organisations >>> interested in openness is the only way it's likely to happen at this point, >>> unfortunately. >>> >>> >>> Do you think that AMEE might be able to provide pointers to relevant >>> URLs where someone else could find descriptions of / links to the openly >>> licensed data they (re-)publish? >>> >>> The data is released with all sources and documentation in >>> https://github.com/AMEE/datasets. This content is all searchable via >>> http://discover.amee.com, but there's a lot of it! There is an open >>> format for computable datasets (written to support an open AMEE effort) at >>> https://github.com/spatchcock/calcJSON and a conversion tool from AMEE >>> to calcJSON at https://github.com/Floppy/connery, which was written at >>> the OKFestival during the greenhackathon. >>> >>> However, that's all probably *completely* impenetrable to someone >>> without knowledge of what AMEE does and how it structures its data, so the >>> first step would be to get something written up explaining it all. >>> >>> I believe we're planning a dedicated sprint focusing on energy, the >>> environment and climate data with OKFN Labs. This is based on work we did >>> with Europe's Energy last year: >>> http://energy.publicdata.eu/ee/index.html >>> >>> Yes, Velichka was telling me about this; sounds good. >>> >>> cheers, >>> James >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> okfn-discuss mailing list >>> okfn-discuss@lists.okfn.org >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Velichka Dimitrova >> Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group >> Open Knowledge Foundation >> http://okfn.org | http://openeconomics.net >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> okfn-labs mailing list >> okfn-l...@lists.okfn.org >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-labs >> >> > -- Velichka Dimitrova Coordinator of the Open Economics Working Group Open Knowledge Foundation http://okfn.org | http://openeconomics.net
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