Do you want to learn more about the Air Quality Index? Then, keep reading because in this post we will explain it in more detail, and tell you how to get access to the API that will help you get the information you need.
What is the Air Quality Index?
The Air Quality Index (AQI) is an indicator that allows us to know the level of pollution in a city, as well as to protect human health. It is just an indicator that is given after an air pollution event, and it measures the concentration of a certain pollutant in a city. It takes into account levels of particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone, and carbon monoxide.
These pollutants can be released from industrial processes, chemical plants or power plants. But also from cars or trucks which are the main cause of pollution. The highest levels of pollution occur during peak times like rush hour, when people are commuting to or from work.
Some factors can contribute to increase the pollutant concentration in the air. These are temperature inversions, which are periods when cold air becomes trapped under warm air, preventing it from rising. This causes smog or haze to build up in lower levels of the atmosphere, or sometimes even on the ground.
Another factor is calm winds during summer months, which allow pollution to accumulate in urban areas. And this is not only a problem of cities: it can be observed in rural areas when there are no winds at all.
On the other hand, some chemicals like carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide are released by volcanoes, forest fires, and industrial processes. They can reach high levels when there is a lot of burning that causes high amounts of these substances to be released into the air.
How can Air Quality Index help you?
But if you have ever lived in a highly polluted city you know that being aware of these numbers is not enough to protect your health. That’s why this indicator tells us how clean or polluted the air quality is using a 0-500 scale. But it also tells us how many hours per year an average person would be exposed to air with a given AQI level. We can say that a high AQI level can directly cause harm to human health because it means that specific pollutants are at high concentrations in your city’s atmosphere.
As well as being a useful tool to know if there are risks for your health when you go out walking or exercising outdoors;
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.
