“The World Bank has estimated that the global cost of health damages from air pollution is $8.1 trillion, with people in low- and middle-income countries most affected,” said Christoph Keller. Harmful air pollution affects people and the environment and according to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for about 7 million deaths worldwide each year. “This scientific research partnership with NASA will help us improve the resolution, validation and the usefulness, of air quality maps in both space and time - giving everyone more data for decisions towards cleaner air” “Environmental insights, like high resolution air quality maps, can be useful tools for cities and community organizations who can take action on climate and health in their neighborhoods,” Moore said. “We’re thrilled about our partnership with NASA to make daily air quality more actionable at a local level,” said Rebecca Moore, director at Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach at Google. The expanded collaboration looks to develop advanced machine learning-based algorithms that link NASA data with Google Earth Engine data streams to generate high-resolution air quality maps in near real-time.
NASA and Google broadened an existing partnership to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality for better decision making.
