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Article Summary and/or Excerpt:
99% of the world’s population breathes air that exceeds the limits recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). This scenario is exacerbated in urban areas where more than 50% of the world’s population is concentrated.
To mitigate the problem of air pollution, considered by the WHO to be the main environmental risk factor for health worldwide, it is crucial to have more reliable and accurate data on the concentration of air pollutants in our cities, especially nitrogen dioxide (NO2) because of its harmful effects on people’s quality of life and the associated economic consequences.
To advance in this line of research, a team of scientists from the Earth System Services group of the Earth Sciences Department at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) has carried out a study that shows that artificial intelligence can be of great use in obtaining reliable information on the probability of exceeding legal limits for air pollution throughout the city.
The aim of the research, published in the journal Geoscientific Model Development, is to help improve air quality management in urban areas by obtaining hourly maps of NO2 concentrations at the street level, as well as quantifying the associated uncertainty.