Yoana Hristova, the Deputy Mayor of Sofia Municipality in charge of environment, took part in a round table dedicated to the modern techniques of air quality measurement in urban environment, organized by the HackAir project in Frankfurt.

Within the framework of the event, options for combined usage of both official air quality reporting data and other alternative data sources, including urban and other sensor networks, were discussed.

In her statement, Hristova presented the official sources of real-time air data used by Sofia Municipality and generated by the Executive Environment Agency (EEA), as well as the system for forecasting of elevated levels of fine dust particles, developed by the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (NIMH) upon the assignment of the municipal administration.

The Deputy Mayor has emphasised on the upcoming project of Sofia Municipality for building a local network of air quality measurement sensors integrated into an open platform for real-time data visualization that will be developed within the “Balkans-Mediterranean" Programme 2014-2020.

She paid particular attention to the increasing importance of active collaboration between the available sources of air data - including the official data, the pilot project of Sofia Municipality and civic initiatives.

Different civic initiatives for air quality monitoring with sensors took part in the event as well as representatives of the European Commission, the European Environment Agency and the Joint Research Center of the European Commission (JRC)