At the beginning of the ‘Hack the Local’ hackhathon at Cardiff Uni, we decided to give it a go and find what open data local governmnets provide on budget, air pollution and planning. We wanted to see what data are out there, how easily it is to access these data, read them and interpret and how we could possibly improve all that in case it is needed. We tweeted journalists out there for advice and we got some answers:
Well, councils actually don’t keep these data locked down, but I m also not saying that the data are prepared on a plate. We looked at councils in Bristol, Beijing and Cardiff.
Let’ s take the example of the air pollution.
Bristol Council publishes live air pollution information on a dedicated website. The site shows 7 monitoring stations in the city of Bristol. Only 4 of them actually show data and update information regularly as stated on the site.It does not break down the statistics about different particles in the air and their levels. Part of our group’s work was also trying to find other existing resources and those provided on this site to find as much as we can on the topic.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a site dedicated to the air pollution In the data selector, you can specify items you are interested in. For Bristol, the data selector offers 4 stations, and gives you option to select pollutants as well.
Next to the numbers provided, there is an index showing green color as a low pollution. The governmental site provides a map which presents UK as a green island with few yellow patches. At the first glance of all those data you could think, oh what a fresh air on this island. Well, guess what.
One month ago, Bristol Post reported on the breaches of levels of PM10 and PM2,5 according to the World Health Organization. The article did not lead to the actual WHO data nor it really explained what those particles are, but that is not the point of this post. When trying to find data about PM10 in St Paul’s area of Bristol, all the statistics from the data selector came out, but if you are not an expert it does not really explain much. Moreover, the data are ‘not verified.’
To sum up the case of Bristol, the info is out there, but if you do not have insight into air pollution monitoring, you cannot really get the data. Now, the question is, how can we make the data aboout air pollution accesible to everyone?
Now let’s look at the Beijing case. It is worth looking at the background of air pollution in Beijing, the central and biggest city in China. In December 2015, a documentary called Under the Dome, by a former CCTV journalist Chai Jing, has hugely raised public’s interest about the air pollution.
And again, we have one topic, one city, but different stories. Relevant department of the central government and local show different data than the US Embassy. The governmental data sometimes different quality than the US ones. Well, how do you want to interpret that discrepancy?
To conclude, after we have reached the point, when we have open data about certain issue, the next step is to question how journalist and public can use them and understand them easily and how to communicate those needs to the authorities. We cannot really say that governments keep the data locked. It may be the case that they don’t know how to make it easier for the readers or they do not have the resources to do. Let’s tell them what we want to knnow and how they can make it happen!
HODOR 