On Thursday, 17.06.2021, the Romanian Association for Smart City launched the City Air program, a national network for monitoring air quality in schools. The program aims to become the largest movement for improving air quality in Romania’s schools. The first stage of the program covers the installation of 60 monitoring stations in 30 schools selected for the program, and the data are freely available on cityair.ro. Periodically, a working group within the association will produce reports and bulletins interpreting these data. The official launch of the project took place in the amphitheatre of the Regina Maria School, with the event organized in partnership with the Sector 6 City Hall and the Sector 6 Schools Administration. Alongside the initiators of the program, the event brought together the technology partners Claritech, TNT Computers, Inoesy and the Nature Talks Association, as well as guests who champion the importance of air quality for a healthy future:
- Ciprian Ciucu, Mayor of Sector 6
- Octavian Berceanu, General Commissioner of the National Environmental Guard
- George Garbacea, President of the National Agency for Environmental Protection
- Dragoș Preda - Executive Director of SN Radiocomunicații
- Teodora Iacob, President of the Nature Talks Association
- Prince Nicholas of Romania, President of the Principele Nicolae Association
- Radu Țincu, senior ICU physician at Floreasca Hospital
- Cristian Croitor - Managing Director of Claritech
- Andrei Zamfirescu, Head of Development, TNT Computers SRL
- Tudor Gorcia - CEO of TNT Computers SRL
- Ovidiu Tudose - CEO of SC INOESY SRL
Romania does not have an air quality monitoring network in schools. According to the organizers, around 25,000 deaths a year in Romania are associated with air pollution..
He also underlined the importance of measuring air quality in order to identify solutions, and above all the importance of collaboration between local and central authorities and civil society, and congratulated the Sector 6 City Hall for its openness and transparency on this subject.
We are at the stage where we are testing stations and technologies, where we go into the heart of the community and learn together. We cannot talk about urban development if we do not understand the problems that pollution brings. Just as we go to the doctor when we feel unwell, to get a diagnosis and run investigations, we must act the same way when it comes to pollution. That is exactly why City Air is the infrastructure made available free of charge to central and local authorities, to civil society and to everyone interested in finding solutions. Only in a collaborative environment can this platform work.
More details about the City Air launch event in the press release published by the Romanian Association for Smart City.
Unfortunately, pollution kills us and kills those who come after us - it kills now and in the future. Sadly, it is a silent phenomenon, because it does not hurt and does not cause any panic, but acts quietly on our health. Air pollution leads to chronic lung diseases, which affect our quality of life and our capacity to work. It increases the risk of cancer across the board, and when we talk about future generations, pollution increases children’s susceptibility to developing respiratory allergies - allergies that mean a predisposition to chronic pathologies in adulthood.
Claritech, technology partner of the City Air program
City Air became possible under the coordination of the Romanian Association for Smart City, with the support of the partners Claritech, Inoesy, TNT Computers and the Nature Talks Association, and through the involvement of the local community. The initial investment is worth 50,000 euros and is 100% private. As technology partner, Claritech supports the initiative by supplying, installing and maintaining the monitoring stations - calibrated outdoor sensors for real-time monitoring of pollution levels (PM1.0 and PM2.5 particulate emissions).
We provide the sensors (the Sensirion monitoring stations). We looked for a solution used in most markets around the world and in Europe - sensors in a superior accuracy class, which naturally complement both the sensors of independent citizen-science networks and the large sensor stations of the national air quality monitoring network. We feel the need to get involved and to invest, because we want to help people realize how important this subject is.
About City Air
A national program for monitoring air quality in schools
The map of the national City Air air quality monitoring platform began to take shape with the start of the pilot project in the capital, on 8 June 2021. In its first phase, the pilot project involves installing two local air pollution monitoring stations at each selected school in Sector 6 (one indoors and one outdoors). For a full year, the sensors will measure the particulate matter in the air breathed indoors and outdoors - PM 1, PM 2.5 and PM 10 - along with humidity, pressure and temperature. The collected data can be accessed by everyone on the map.cityair.ro platform. In a first phase, air quality is described with the indicators “good”, “average” and “bad”, so that users can understand the data collected by the monitoring stations as simply as possible. Behind the scenes, however, the complete data are stored, and reports will be issued periodically to show how air quality has evolved over a longer period in the schools where the stations were installed. A mobile application will also be developed in the coming period, issuing alerts whenever air quality drops below the accepted level. Globally, 600,000 children die every year because of indoor and outdoor pollution. The main objective of the City Air program is to build a true picture of air quality in schools and thus create the infrastructure needed to show an up-to-date snapshot of the situation.
About the monitoring system
The air quality monitoring system supplied by Claritech in Romania
The monitoring system delivers accurate air quality measurements over a long service life, thanks in particular to its redundant configuration, factory-calibrated sensors and built-in self-configuration and self-diagnostic functions. The system is MCERTS-certified and is manufactured by Sensirion of Switzerland, a company with a tradition of more than 20 years in producing high-precision sensors. The data recorded by the sensors can also be viewed on the aer.claritech.ro platform.
