PARIS: An interactive map that makes it possible to check air quality in real time across Europe, where air pollution has been linked to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year, went live on Thursday.

Dubbed the “European Air Quality Index” and launched by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Commission, the map gathers hourly data from more than 2,000 monitoring stations across Europe.

“Air pollution is an invisible killer, so the air quality index is needed to inform European citizens on the state of the air they breathe,” EU Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella said in a statement.

Stations are marked on the map with coloured lights ranging from light green to dark red, which indicates the level of at least one of these pollutants is “very

bad“: ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, PM10 -- particles measuring less than 10 microns -- and smaller PM2.5 particles, which can enter the lungs and even the bloodstream.

Grey spots appear in several EEA member states such as Italy, Greece, Iceland and Turkey, because they do not transmit their data in real time.

“It’s important that citizens are aware that yes, we’ve done quite a bit in Europe on air pollution, we’ve seen significant improvement over the last decade... but we’re not there yet,” EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx said.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2017