Miami to deploy network of air quality monitoring sensors
The information gathered will be used to detect pollution hotspots and provide a database of environmental analytics to help protect the health of Miami’s inhabitants.
The air quality network aligns with other Miami initiatives to become a green city
The City of Miami, Florida, has partnered with PlanetWatch to deploy an air quality monitoring network across the city.
This deployment will be the company’s first large-scale project in the US and follows the integration of its technology in several European cities.
Green data
PlanetWatch’s decentralised indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring network is built on the Algorand blockchain. So-called ‘PlanetWatchers’ will host the air quality sensors to collect green data that will be transcribed onto the Algorand blockchain.
Contributors will then receive ‘Planets’ tokens as compensation. The information will be used to detect pollution hotspots and provide a database of environmental analytics to help protect the health of Miami’s inhabitants.
“The people of Miami will play an invaluable role in expanding an air quality database that will help to protect the health of our people and our planet”
The project will build upon the City’s commitments made as part of its “Miami Forever Climate Ready” initiative.
“Miami is striving to become a green city through policies like the ‘Miami Forever Climate Ready’ initiative, and it is hugely exciting that innovators like PlanetWatch and Algorand are coming here to implement major sustainable technology in the US,” said Francis Suarez, mayor.
The announcement comes on the back of global commitments to improve environmental policy following Cop26, prior to which the World Health Organisation updated its global air quality guidelines.
There is an increasing need for cities to take control of their air quality, particularly following evidence from the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report that more than 40 per cent of Americans live in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution.
“Miami is a thriving hub of innovation and we are thrilled to be partnering with the city as we progress in our vision of establishing a global network of low-impact, cost-effective environmental monitoring,” added Claudio Parrinello, CEO of PlanetWatch.
“Algorand is a carbon-negative blockchain, and the data from this project will play a crucial role in our climate adaptation efforts as well as our ambitions to make Miami an epicentre for digital capital markets”
“PlanetWatch is built upon the contribution of individuals, and the people of Miami will play an invaluable role in expanding an air quality database that will help to protect the health of our people and our planet.”
PlanetWatch is a tech start-up based in France, less than a mile away from Cern research institute. By leveraging the Algorand blockchain, advanced data acquisition software developed at Cern and high-performance yet affordable air quality sensors, including advanced devices developed by a major research institute, Planetwatch aims to “decentralise, incentivise and gamify” environmental monitoring.
Planetwatch said it is deploying dense, low-cost air quality monitoring networks delivering real-time data and building the first global immutable ledger for historical air quality data.
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