AutoPollen

Clean Air Day – how EUMETNET’s AutoPollen Programme is helping with air quality monitoring

0 Comments

To highlight the contribution of NMHSs to the health sector on the occasion of the Clean Air Day, the WMO Regional Office for Europe has conducted an interview on the EUMETNET AutoPollen Programme.

Read the full interview at https://community.wmo.int/en/interviews to discover how the programme aids in air quality monitoring and management. The interview provides valuable insights into the programme’s role in research and operations.

AutoPollen special issue in Aerobiologia

0 Comments

AutoPollen, a EUMETNET programme dedicated to developing a European network for the real-time detection of pollen and fungal spores, published a special issue in the journal Aerobiologia.

This issue provides a comprehensive overview of the programme’s achievements on topics such as forecast models integrating real-time pollen observations, bioaerosol detection and identification methods, and evaluation and standardization of these methods.

It serves as a valuable resource for experts aiming to establish or enhance automatic aerobiological monitoring networks and highlights the impact of real-time and high temporal resolution data for end-users in a range of sectors from public health, research, to agricultural and more.

Visual: Picture from Regula Gehrig

One Health: Need for an EU One Health-in-all-policies approach: Addressing the Asthma and Allergy pandemic

0 Comments

 

On last Tuesday 4 July, a round table was held in European Parliament in Brussels entitled “One Health: Need for an EU One Health-in-all-policies approach: Addressing the Asthma and Allergy pandemic “.
This event, organised under the lead of Ingrida Šaulienė and hosted by the MEP Juozas Olekas, was a great opportunity to promote the inclusion of information on pollen concentrations in European regulations.
To watch or re-watch this exciting event, you can download the recording via the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LOQHEyio6Ku3CLM46QZAomDEcXFnbyVX/view?usp=drive_link

Also, some photos of the event are available via: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LTTCjfivK_xdDpf8TiCiFqQMR9smDm5q?usp=drive_link

The event culminated in a Joint Statement which you can find below

Joint Statement – AutoPollen

AutoPollen featuring in the EAACI Weekly Highlights report

0 Comments

The EUMETNET AutoPollen activity was featured in a report made at the Annual Congress of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology – see link to report below:

Article “A new era…”

 

Process of automatic pollen counting

0 Comments

The hayfever radar website has an interesting and explanatory article about the process of automatic pollen counting.

It links back to our Autopollen Programme.

Summer course “Advanced Aerobiology 2019”

0 Comments

Please find below the announcement for the Summer Course “Advanced Aerobiology 2019“.

The registration deadline has been extended to the 22nd March.

AAcourse2019

AutoPollen

0 Comments

AUTOPOLLEN

Background

Pollen allergy and asthma affect between 15-40% of the European population and as such are some of the most common chronic diseases in the region. Related direct and indirect health costs have been estimated to be between €50-150 billion per year. Air pollution and extreme weather can further exacerbate pollen allergy and it is believed that, together with other environmental elements, these factors have played a role in the increasing prevalence of pollen allergy in Europe over the past decades.  

Practical mitigation and adaptation measures are based on pollen observations. These data are used by physicians for diagnosis, treatment, clinical studies, and education. They are also used for empirical and numerical pollen forecasts, which in turn aid allergy sufferers to effectively plan their activities and medication intake. Furthermore, long-term pollen data are useful for phenological studies and monitoring of invasive species.

  • "Serving as a Proof-of-Concept for a European automatic pollen monitoring network using high temporal-resolution real-time measurements."

At present, most pollen monitoring networks are based on manual observations which suffer from poor time resolution and long delays in data availability. However, recent technological developments provide the possibility to make automatic pollen observations that are revolutionising the information that can be made available to end-users. Such timely information, and the enhanced forecasts this enables, will vastly improve the treatment and lives of allergy sufferers.

Objectives

The AutoPollen programme seeks to take full advantage of the large potential for progress that automatic pollen observations provide. It brings together a consortium from across Europe with the multidisciplinary expertise needed to address the challenges along the entire information chain – from the actual observation through to the final end-user defined product. The programme is particularly innovative in its cooperation and standardisation from-the-start approach. It also favours convergence with the aerosol and air quality monitoring communities, which should lead to improved service provision and additional savings.

The programme aims to:

– Define the main standards of automatic pollen monitoring (methods, sites, data format, quality assessment and control, etc.)
– Demonstrate the feasibility of an automatic European pollen monitoring network by integrating developing and planned projects.
– Deliver information and recommendations to members for the establishment of  automatic pollen networks and the development of related products based on real-time pollen data.
– Actively engage with stakeholders to ensure end-products are designed with their needs as priority.
– Provide a space to share multidisciplinary expertise to ensure synergy and collaboration.
– Explore the way to standardisation and the possible extension of the activity to the WMO.

Organisation

The AutoPollen Programme is coordinated by MeteoSwiss, started in January 2018 and will run until the end of 2022. Four Working Groups focus on the main topics of interest: Techniques, Quality, Processing, and Products. The leads of each working group together form the AutoPollen Expert Team. 

Participants

AutoPollen includes a wide range of participants, from EUMETNET members to universities, research institutes, and patient organisations, reflecting the diverse landscape of institutes involved in pollen monitoring across Europe:

ARSO, Slovenia – CHMI, Czech Republic – DHMZ, Croatia – DWD, Germany – FMI, Finland – HNMS, Greece – IMGW-PIB, Poland – Met Eireann, Ireland – MeteoLux, Luxemburg – MeteoSwiss, Switzerland – IPMA, Portugal – ZAMG, Austria – AERONET, Turkey – ATMO, France – Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety, Germany – Biosense Institute Research, Serbia – European Aerobiology Society –  European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients’ Association (EFA) –National Pirogov Memorial Medical University, Ukraine – Red Española de Aerobiología (REA), Spain – RNSA, France – Sciensano, Belgium – Siauliai University, Lithuania – Swedish Natural History Museum, Sweden– University of Latvia, Latvia – University of Worcester, UK – ZAUM – Zentrum for Allergie und Umwelt Medezin, Germany

Furthermore, the programme collaborates with several European-level projects and organisations, including: the CAMS-23 project, the COST Action ADOPT (New Approaches in Detection of Pathogens and Aeroallergens – CA18226), and the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).

Further information

Further Information

Current automatic pollen monitoring activities

There are several ongoing projects and activities related to automatic pollen monitoring across Europe. This includes:

–        The Bavarian e-PIN platform, the world’s first fully automatic pollen monitoring network with public access to 3-hourly observations.

–         The Serbian-Croatian RealForAll project

–         The automatisation of the Swiss pollen monitoring network

–         The Irish POMMEL project

–         The Lithaunian-Latvian-Finnish PASYFO project


 

Current Activities

0 Comments

OTHER AREAS – CURRENT ACTIVITIES

RADIO-FREQUENCY MANAGEMENT

This Programme was set up to protect the specific radio-frequencies that are used by the meteorological community.

Read More

AUTOPOLLEN

This Programme was set up to bring together a consortium from across Europe to define the main standards of automatic pollen monitoring.

Read More