Girona is the capital city of the homonymous province located in the northeast of Catalonia at an altitude of 75m above sea level. It has a population of 103,369 inhabitants (INE 2020), and through it cross the Ter, Güell rivers, Galligants and Onyar.
Since 2004, the city has had an automatic pollutant measurement station of the Atmospheric Pollution Surveillance and Forecast Network (XVPCA) of the Generalitat of Catalonia, located in the Municipal School of Music where suspended particles (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) are measured. The XVPCA is the system for detecting the immission levels of the main pollutants in different parts of Catalonia and the data collected is available to the public. The city has carried out other initiatives, such as the installation of passive tubes to monitor NO2 at different points of the city, and the 2018 pilot test that was carried out together with Bettair Cities, in which 4 bettair® devices were installed to measure air pollution in different parts of the city under the initiative Laboratori SmartCatalonia of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
At the end of January 2022, the city of Girona will add ten new bettair® platforms to measure air quality; in particular the suspended particles, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and also other environmental information such as temperature, humidity and real atmospheric pressure. The devices will use the LoRaWAN network to send data to the platform since Girona has a network infrastructure with three access points, which allows the cost of data transmission to be reduced, as well as the energy consumption of the devices that will be powered by solar panels.
The intention is to unify, on a single platform and in real time, the visualisation of the state of the air at the different points where these sensors are situated, and that it is accessible to the public. All of this is part of the Girona Ciutat Intel·ligent project, coordinated by the Municipal Unit for Territorial Analysis of the Girona City Council.
This new monitoring network will make it possible to assess the relationship between the intensity of traffic on main roads and the level of pollutants emitted. It will also make it possible to detect the areas of the city affected by higher levels of pollution, allowing to influence in detail with concrete measures, both preventive and corrective. Fulfilling the transparency criteria, the data collected by the sensors will be public, and therefore allowing citizens direct and free access to the information.
