PREV’AIR, France’s national air quality forecasting platform, is one part of the French air quality monitoring and management system, supplementing the information provided by the measurement networks managed by the Official Air Quality Monitoring Associations (AASQA).
This air quality forecasting platform, developed and managed on a daily basis by Ineris, is the product of a consortium with Ineris, Météo-France, CRNS and the Central Air Quality Monitoring Laboratory (LCSQA). It uses numerical simulations combined with observations taken in the field to predict and map concentrations of regulated atmospheric pollutants.
The PREV’AIR system was implemented in 2003 with the aim of publishing daily air quality predictions, as well as air quality maps at various spatial scales, on its website.
These data are the result of complex physical-chemical models of the atmosphere, combined with data fusion algorithms and machine learning, which factors in the flow of data collected in real time across Europe by thousands of air quality sensors.
This year, in order to develop and improve its calculation abilities, the platform has undergone major updates, for which Ineris had the support of ATOS/BULL and Météo-France. PREV’AIR is now hosted by the Météo-France calculation center. Its newly operational forecast chain now uses petaflop calculation resources, taking it a technological leap forward to a higher resolution. Pollution maps of France are now produced on a daily basis at a resolution of 4 km, versus the previous 10 km.
Ineris and Méteo-France are also collaborating as part of the European Commission’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service to produce European maps with a precision of 10 km. In addition to these highly precise simulations, PREV’AIR is now capable of providing forecasts up to three days in advance, up from the previous two days.
This more precise and reliable information is already available at www.prevair.org, and is used by Ineris’ forecasting experts to anticipate and understand pollution episodes developing in France throughout the year, such as the ozone episode that occurred in the beginning of the summer or the severe, persistent particles episode of December 2016 (figures below).
In response to public concern over air quality issues and the emergence of startups seeking to expand the services they offer, PREV’AIR decided to make its forecasts available as open data at the website data.gouv.fr. Now everyone can access the numerical data for 4-day air quality forecasts in France.
