Sample output from the Denver pilot. More interactive mapping results are available at insights.aclima.io. Click to enlarge.

We have a profound opportunity to understand how cities live and breathe in an entirely new way by integrating Aclima’s mobile sensing platform with Google Maps and Street View cars. With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, environmental health is becoming increasingly important to quality of life. Today we’re announcing the success of our integration test with Google, which lays the foundation for generating high resolution maps of air quality in cities.

—Davida Herzl, co-founder and CEO of Aclima

This partnership with Aclima enables us to take the next steps in our pilot project to utilize Street View’s existing infrastructure and test Google Maps as an environmental sensing platform for mapping the environment. We hope this information will enable more people to be aware of how our cities live and breathe, and join the dialog on how to make improvements to air quality.

—Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Program Manager for Google Earth Outreach

The EPA currently relies on an extensive network of stationary equipment, placed in urban areas, that measure carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons and photochemical oxidants. The monitoring network is designed for air quality regulation, but does not give a detailed picture of a community or urban area such that people can get a real sense of what air pollution is in their immediate surroundings.

Aclima’s mobile sensing platform on Street View cars complements EPA’s regional air measurement network by introducing a new body of knowledge about air quality at the street level.

Our research partnership with Aclima is helping us understand air pollutants at the local and community level, and how they move in an urban area at the ground level. New mobile air measurements can complement existing stationary measurements for a more detailed picture of personal and community air quality.

—Dan Costa, Sc.D., National Program Director, EPA’s Office of Research and Development

This Fall, Aclima and Google will expand mapping efforts to the San Francisco Bay Area and work with communities and scientists to explore applications for this new environmental tool.

The announcement builds on Aclima’s established partnership with Google to map the indoor environment. Together, they have created a network that is the first of its kind, connected across 21 Google offices around the world.

The system processes 500,000,000 data points each day on indoor environmental quality, including comfort measures of temperature, humidity, noise, and light, and air pollutants like carbon dioxide and particulate matter. The information allows Google to evaluate environmental factors in their offices and, in the future, make better decisions on workplace design to support employee wellbeing, productivity and creativity.