New website from Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: Residents of the capital wanting to get a clear picture of the air quality in the city can now log on to a special website launched by the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi.

The agency has also launched an online index at www.ead.ae that should prove helpful for people with respiratory illnesses.

The site has been put up in association with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, the agency's partner in achieving better air quality in Abu Dhabi.

"This [the website] will provide essential information for anyone related to the field of air quality across the government and private sector. It will enable us, as the environmental regulator, to make the right policy decisions and put the right laws in place. We're doing this to make sure our children and their children have cleaner air to breathe," said Majid Al Mansouri, secretary general of the agency.

"The Air Quality Index will help those who suffer from respiratory problems. They will be able to check their local air quality online daily and be able to manage their own health in a better way," he said in a statement.

Al Mansouri said the index would present an easy-to-read, colour-coded interface that would assign six standards of atmospheric purity ranging from good (green) to hazardous (maroon).

A senior agency official told Gulf News that the website, by translating scientific jargon into figures and terms, made the data easier for the layman to relate to. "By explaining it all in colour mode, the data becomes much more comprehensible.

Prediction models

"For instance, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, along Hamdan Street and Salam Street, the air quality recorded was not good because of the rush hour. Later, the air quality improved. We are also working on prediction models, which could again help people", he noted.

Data collected from 10 fixed and two mobile monitoring stations is calibrated in Abu Dhabi's central laboratory and updated throughout the day, onto the website.