A French environmental tech company has developed a free mobile app that provides real-time pollution forecasting.
Plume Labs is tackling the problem of pollution by providing the public with live reports that allow them to avoid problem areas; in the same way people plan ahead by checking the weather forecast.
The Plume Air Report app, designed to ‘help you breathe better’ harnesses information from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), created by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). CAMS, also available for free, monitors air quality over Europe, and to a less precise degree over the whole world, using supercomputer tech and satellite data.
Plume Labs also integrates machine learning to develop its air report, which 73% of users say they have used to steer away from ‘smog spikes’. And a number of other sources, including around 12,000 government-run monitoring stations – as well as the CAMS system.
“We want it to be as easy to check a pollution forecast as it is to check a weather forecast. You take an umbrella if it is predicting rain. Equally you can make small changes to your routine if you know it is a polluted day,” said Romain Lacombe, CEO and Co-Founder of Plume Labs.
The Plume Air Report app is available in the app store and on android.
