For those who are unfamiliar with air quality and its affects on public health, we have created this blog post as a guide.
Did you know that the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that 7 million deaths each year are directly caused by exposure to polluted air? It is the second leading cause of deaths globally, behind the effects of smoking tobacco.
Air pollution is caused by a variety of factors such as industrial production; road transport; construction; agriculture; and others. Climate change is also a factor because it increases the effects of air pollution.
Although it varies from country to country, air quality in most urban centers is terrible. Air pollution control is difficult because air quality is affected by many different factors such as wind speed, temperature, and humidity.
Some countries such as France and the UK have implemented emissions control programs to reduce ambient levels of air pollution. In London, massive levels of traffic congestion make controlling emissions challenging. In addition, weather conditions influence effective monitoring of pollution by masking high levels during rain or fog.
All of this information leads us to conclude that there is a need for a tool or a system that can monitor the level of pollution in real-time and provide accurate data about the quality of air. That is exactly what an API can do. If you’re wondering what an API is, we’ll go into more detail later on in this blog post.
An API: What is it?
APIs (Application Programming Interface) enable data exchange between two different systems or programs. It’s a set of protocol followed by an endpoint that offers data retrieval/insertion service to other systems.
APIS also enable “self-service” capability so anyone (internal or external to an organization) can use them without needing much technical knowledge. A particular type of API called an “API for weather data” allows users to access current and historical weather data in different formats such as JSON or XML and more.
An API for Air Pollution Data: Get Current US Air Quality Data API
Get Current US Air Quality Data API allows its users to retrieve current, historical, and forecasted air quality data from any location in the United States.
This tool will provide accurate and reliable results allowing you to plan your days based on air quality levels so you don’t have to be exposed to dangerous pollutants such as ozone or particulate matter when
This API will retrieve the current, historical, and forecasted Air Quality Index of any location in the world.
To make use of it, you must first:
1- Go to Air Quality Index API and simply click on the button “Subscribe for free” to start using the API.
2- After signing up in Zyla API Hub, you’ll be given your personal API key. Using this one-of-a-kind combination of numbers and letters, you’ll be able to use, connect, and manage APIs!
3- Employ the different API endpoints depending on what you are looking for.
4- Once you meet your needed endpoint, make the API call by pressing the button “run” and see the results on your screen.
