Multi-layer data platform for the management and anticipation of odour episodes in port environments through the concept of citizen science.
The NASAPP project develops a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform of multilayer data that allows monitoring odours in real-time through the concept of citizen science, adding to the current tools of pollutant dispersion models and sensors, the concept of citizen science to measure the concentration of odour nuisance and its dispersion in the territory.
The NASAPP app provides citizens with a tool that allows them to register odour nuisance incidents. These individual records make up a dynamic map of dispersion and geographical impact to subsequently provide this information to users of the port authorities and thus be able to work the data statistically for scientific-technical studies aimed at determining the causes that produce episodes of odour nuisance, validation of models of dispersion of pollutants or early warning of an incident at an industrial level.
Through the Ports 4.0 programme, the project has obtained funding to improve and implement machine learning algorithms in port areas. The prototype is currently being implemented in the Port of Tarragona, to predict possible odour episodes that may affect the port community and neighbours near the port area. The Port Authority of Tarragona already has atmospheric meters for the characterisation of air quality, but thanks to the NASAPP project it will now have more data and information that will allow it to optimise its operations and improve the quality of life of the port community and its neighbours.
The platform has backtracking algorithms that make it possible to locate and contextualise the origin of the odour episode. But thanks to the Ports 4.0 project, NASAPP goes a step further in the prediction and characterisation of odour episodes, materialising as an application and with a web manager capable of integrating the olfactory sensory perception of citizens in real-time.
Thus, the platform acts as an early warning system for critical events and environmental monitoring, determining their source and overcoming the limitations of chemical equipment that does not allow in situ quantification of odour episodes with the precision of human olfaction.
Eurecat participates in the NASAPP project through its Chemical Technology Unit and the Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) Unit, which develops and implements predictive algorithms based on the combination of artificial intelligence technologies, meteorological data and citizen registration data.
The Valorization Area carries out all the necessary processes to increase the economic value of research, converting the results of its developments into viable and industrializable products, maximizing the possibilities of transfer to the market.
General details
Project
NASAPP – Citizen participation in the management of environmental pollution
Project reference
PROYECTO 2.13
Project name
NASAPP
Programme and call for tender
Project funded by the Ports 4.0 program
The Eurecat technology centre’s Chemical Technology Unit is this week showcasing the new features of the NasApp collaborative app at the Expoquimia trade fair. The app makes it possible to generate odour maps with a view to tackling and foreseeing odour pollution incidents through public and business participation.
Eurecat’s booth at Expoquimia is displaying the latest update of the NasApp project, a multi-layered data platform which connects empirical odour perceptions with a real-time warning system of unwanted incidents in residential areas.
The technology makes it possible to track complaints and observations due to odour incidents. Once the public’s observations have been checked and verified, NasApp turns them into objective information by modelling the terrain and wind currents to monitor and describe the odour incidents and pinpoint their source via backtracking algorithms.
NasApp kicked off in 2011 in Tarragona and currently has more than 2,500 reporting partners around the world working for periods of between six months and two years. Isabel de Lucas, an environmental engineer at the Eurecat technology centre, says that the project is “highly rated by the public, especially when they see how their input helps to improve their environment and can directly yield helpful outcomes.”
The app taps Big Data techniques to add to a history of records made by the public with studies of air back trajectories. It then draws on this comparison to trace where odour incidents come from and “confirm or rule out the effectiveness of the technical improvements suggested by the sources to mitigate the nuisance,” says de Lucas who has an MSc in Environmental Engineering.
NasApp “is as useful for the public as it is for odour generators who need a reliable indicator to learn the scale and extent of their impact,” notes Pablo Ramos, holder of a PhD in Chemistry
The NasApp system is used in towns and cities across Spain and is also helping to identify odour pollution problems in Chile, Peru and Colombia.
