Photo by: Bloomberg
A collaboration agreement between the City of Johannesburg, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and IBM Research would see the application of advanced technologies to help the city deliver on its air-quality management plan.
Through this agreement, researchers from IBM South Africa’s research laboratory would work closely with government and the CSIR to analyse historical and real-time data from environmental monitoring stations across the city.
Building on IBM’s global Green Horizons initiative, the partnership would leverage the Internet of Things (IoT), combined with the analytical power of cognitive computing, to provide insights and recommended actions to improve air quality and better protect the health of Johannesburg citizens.
The programme would further seek to uncover greater insight about the nature and causes of air pollution, as well as model the effectiveness of intervention strategies.
In its second phase, the programme would be extended to include high-accuracy air pollution forecasting for planning and decision support and enable a proactive approach to air quality management.
“While Johannesburg does not yet have the air pollution challenges to the scale of the world’s megacities, continued economic and demographic growth mean that the city’s government must take action now to safeguard the future health of the city and its people,” IBM South Africa research laboratory director Solomon Assefa explained.
The parties also discussed a long-term plan to extend the project across the Gauteng province to Pretoria and the Vaal Industrial Triangle.