Environment: ENEA part of EU project for new air quality monitoring techniques

The European project VIDIS kicks off, with the objective of improving and sharing air quality monitoring techniques.   ENEA is among the participants together with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT - Australia), the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU - Norway) and the Vinča Institute (Serbia) in the role of coordinator.

Funded by the Horizon 2020 - Widespread program, the project VIDIS (Virtual Center for Distributed Atmospheric Sensing for Reduction of Pollution Pressure) which will last three years,  envisages the development of advanced techniques of remote sensing, transmission and processing of data acquired through environmental sensor networks (Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Data Assimilation).

These techniques, which have already produced a profound change in information and air pollution modelling, combined with the development of shared artificial intelligence systems will enable the integration of new types of data in the information systems already in use.

"One of the main strong points of the project is the development of a coordinated quality system ensuring the reliability of the data collected along the whole processing chain, from ground measurement to Artificial Intelligence prediction of significant events", project contact person Saverio De Vito, researcher at the ENEA Photovoltaic and Sensory Systems and Applications Laboratory of the Portici Center, explained.

ENEA will make available the data collected by the MONICA (Cooperative Air Quality MONITORING) sensors -equipped with artificial intelligence tools- which have made it possible to draw actual air quality maps with very high space-time resolution during  monitoring campaigns.

"The ENEA smog sensor was used as part of the European project Air Heritage jointly with the Municipality of Portici, ARPAC, Legambiente Campania, Federico II University of Naples and TerrAria srl with the involvement of citizens in monitoring activities on the main thoroughfares of the town of Portici, near Naples, conducted during phase 2 of the lockdown, which resulted in a first map based on the data collected in the 4 routes, scheduled several times throughout the day ", De Vito said.

The collaboration among the 4 institutions foresees data sharing, definition of new joint research activities and training of new researchers.

"The outcomes of the studies and the sharing of know-how of INSTITUTIONS  like ENEA, NILU and QUT, leading in this area of research, will allow on the one hand to consolidate their position and on the other hand to improve the already significant performance of the Vinča Institute -a research excellence Institute in Serbia- one of the most active states among those comprised in the European Union ", De Vito concluded.

ENEA will make its Portici Center laboratories available to host and train researchers. In addition, a team of researchers will move to Australia, Serbia and Norway laboratories with the objective of training new experts in this sector.

For more information please contact:

Saverio De Vito, ENEA – Photovoltaic and Sensory Systems and Applications Laboratory, saverio.devito@enea.it