Google releases new tool to measure pollution in cities 

The company is adding new cities to their Environmental Insights Explorer service, which can be used to track the environmental conditions within the city, highlighting the most critical types of pollution for a particular area.

Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) is a Google tool for monitoring pollution levels which was previously limited to cities in the United States. The tool now also works in Europe. The list of cities was updated to include Birmingham, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Dublin and Copenhagen. The company will add new cities on other continents within the next few weeks.

To learn about the levels of pollution in a particular city, visit the project website. If the city is not yet included in EIE, it can be requested using a special online form.

The service is based on publicly available data from Google Maps about the amount of pollution from transport and ongoing construction. EIE separates the data into four categories: building emissions, transportation emissions, total emissions, and rooftop solar potential.

The tool was created to launch conversations about the changes to be made in different cities to reduce the amount of pollution. For example, adding more bike lanes or installing solar panels on buildings are two potential solutions. 

In another Google project called Air View, Street View vehicles measured the amount of air pollution in various cities including London and Copenhagen. This data will also be available in EIE.