Impact of climate change on agriculture: problems and their solutions

It is not news nowadays that the climate on earth is changing. And this change is not a long-term prospect, this is a process happening here and now. Consequences of it one can observe in this day and age. Climate change has a global impact on the human environment, nature, wildlife. And surely it also takes its strongest toll on economics. The most vulnerable to climate change agricultural sector turns to be. Many agricultural plants, on manufacture and market sale of which economics of some countries and large sectors of world trade are based, are extremely susceptible to weather changes; unexpected climate changes, not to mention here a process of global warming, can affect production of these plants in the most disastrous way. In its turn this process can directly influence the majority of population of export countries, where cultivation of these plants is basically the only source of income, and in some cases the main element of the food supply. Kenya where about 9% of the world leafy tea are produced and this tea is the largest source of foreign currency for the country faces the situation when more abundant rainfall, severe drought and unexpected frost damage fragile bushes. In consequence, tea plantations are reduced, and to maintain export level of tea it is necessary to start locating new plantations at higher altitudes. This case makes farmers’ work complicated, and many of them can lose their livelihood.  

A rise in temperature, frequent droughts and heat waves reduce the growth period of cassava (Manihot esculenta) on African fields that accordingly affects the crop adversely. Considering that cassava is a staple food in this overpopulated region threat of famine seems quite real.

 “In the case of the US drought, soybean production decreased by 12%, while core production fell by 13% to its lowest level since 2006, according to the Department of Agriculture. Insured crop losses were almost $12bn and overall GDP suffered as a result. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has predicted that weather events like extensive droughts or high temperatures will have a negative impact on credit ratings of corporations and institutions that are affected.”
(с) Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty

Due to frost in Brazil, millions of tons of sugarcane were damaged, which led to a significant reduction in sugar exports. Reuters informs that frosts also would lead to considerable losses of wheat crop in the current season and of coffee crop next year.

Thus one of the most important questions related to climate change including global warming is how it will affect the food supply of the world population which keeps growing.

Humanity can influence climate change only to some small extent. And even if a battle with global warming is successful, the climate on earth still will keep changing. Impact of such phenomena as El Niño is hardly underestimated.

And also one should pay respect to rainfalls, drought or frost, which are temporary, but sometimes protracted.  
Currently a whole package of measures is suggested which can if not change the situation then smooth out the impact and consequences of various weather phenomena on economics in general and on agriculture in particular. For instance, increasing of efficiency of agricultural measures, so-called “current land use” is worth mentioning here. Nowadays these technologies exist which help making choices in how much land to cultivate, how many and what kind of crops to plant in some region and what the best use for fertilizers is in a condition of changing climate.

Here come to help weather forecasts specially designed for agriculture, analysis of historical data, processing of satellite images in various spectrums, etc. A new sector of economics called the weather risk management market highly develops.
Public attitude to insurance in agricultural sphere has been changed. The standard common approach gives its way to thoughtful, based on analysis of all available data one, to insurance of farmers, which can help them survive crises caused by natural disasters.

And there is a hope that the use of cloud and big data technologies, the use of platforms such as VANE Spatial Data SciencePlatform by OpenWeatherMap if not tame weather phenomena, then make them a calculated object for forecast and analysis.

Unity of satellite and weather data to battle fires

Meanwhile space dimension technologies highly evolve and artificial space satellites explore other planets for decades already, satellite technologies for observing the surface of our planet also become more complicated. With analysis of data received from satellites one can if not solve entirely then as minimum contribute to solving of global issues in many aspects of human life such as agriculture, logistics on ground surface and in open water, environmental pollution, etc.
And one of such global issues which has become extremely crucial during recent months is afire. It happens in both hemispheres of the earth: in California, Arizona, Ontario, at Baikal Lake. Surely the main battle with fire takes place on earth surface, however such technologies as remote monitoring and other tools which provide timely data can and already do make performing of work tasks for firefighters easier. Generally speaking, unity of field maps and remote monitoring is a modern standard for fire guiding services. So how can remote monitoring help in battle with fires? The main questions that are of great importance in the beginning are whether there is a real fire or not, the amount of victimized territory, how much stuff have already burnt and how much can be burnt in the future. At this stage timely and proper operational data are crucial since these data are used in calculating how many human and technological resources are necessary to battle fire. So how can satellite data help then, and what can be calculated with its help? Nowadays there are several methods of detection of fires. All the satellites have infrared sensors, and open fires are well seen in infrared dimension as they beam as bright red points in this spectrum. Thus with the help of satellite monitoring any deviance is traced which likely can turn to be a fire. Unfortunately if a starting fire is small in size then it can’t be detected on images from satellites.
One more problematic aspect here is that one cannot definitely say that it is a fire for sure on an image, as a factory pipe or a roof highly heated under sun can also glow brightly in infrared spectrum. That is why the process of interpretation of these data is rather complicated and however there are such products as Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)by NASA, this question of interpretation of data is not completely solved yet. The second issue here is that a satellite is a little help in detection of unseen fire. It happens when peatbogs burn. If a latent fire is covered with leaves or peat burns under the surface of the ground, then such fires are hardly seen in infrared spectrum.
But in case when a fire affects big territories of hundreds of hectares, it is properly to speak about accurate evaluation of a situation with the help of satellite data. And in a situation when thousands of hectares are affected the remote monitoring provides the better perception of a case in comparison with ground research or a flight over a fire as there are risks of poor visibility, smoke and lack of fuel. Also satellite can help to detect the areas where smoke spreads. Smoke consists of aerosol particles and thus it can be easily differentiated from clouds, but not so easily from greenhouse gases coming with wind from neighboring fields. Summarizing it all, it becomes clear that at least at a current stage of technological progress the problems of timely fire detection and of getting accurate data about existing fires cannot be entirely solved using only satellite technologies. And here weather data come to help.
Combined analysis of satellite and weather data contributes to more complex and precise products. One can perform forecasting of behavior of points with starting fire: whether a fire is going to a halt or whether more territory can be affected. For instance, analysis of NDVI index provides knowledge that it is exactly wood burns. Further one can determine a degree of humidity and find out that this wood is dry, in a case. By analyzing available historical weather data it is possible to get to know that it has not rained recently, thus at the moment this forest is quite arid. Or vise versa, it has rained recently, air humidity is high and thus one can come to a conclusion that a fire will not last long. With forecasts for a specific location one can determine whether a storm with lightning is expected, as lightning on its own can cause fire and boost burning in a dry forest. Also forecasts show whether heavy rains and showers are possible during next 2 weeks, which can stop fire.
Therefore, there are several factors for analysis: the presence/absence of forest, the amount of fresh and dry leaves, humidity, forecast expectation of rains and storms. Considering these and other data a conclusion can be made whether the given territory is at risk or not for the next 2 weeks.
Later on, with knowledge of wind direction it is possible to predict spreading of fire and smoke, to determine presence of towns and settlements in affected areas, and to define degree and time frames of approaching danger and to warn inhabitants.
Unfortunately in cases when smoke covers large cities there is a little chance to battle fire with human-made tools. Authorities can try to stop fire spreading, can provide people with respirators, can involve air conditioners, can engage humanitarian aid. But only weather condition with heavy rains is in force to bring fire to a halt. Thus timely detection of fires, elimination of it at stages when it is possible to do or at least not using heavy machinery is important not only for firefighters who work on the ground, but also for inhabitants who live in potentially dangerous areas.

Big Data and analytical systems. Data on air pollution for exact forecasts

Smog 1n Mexico DF

In recent years, the situation with air pollution is becoming more alarming and attracted the attention of leading media and politicians at the highest level. This is especially true of large cities such as Beijing, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tehran, Johannesburg and other densely populated settlements, which are under the influence of various risk factors, such as dense traffic, the presence of air polluting enterprises located poorly in terms of ecology, where pollution levels sometimes exceed all standards many times.

Depending on the degree of interest of the authorities in cities, pollution control is more or less in place, but, unfortunately, the monitoring systems which are in use now, are ineffective. Technologies that allow to build forecasts already exist, but they do not provide the necessary level of accuracy and do not allow to predict rises to a dangerous levels of pollution. The basis for the creation of accurate predictions certainly are accurate data on key parameters in an amount, that is sufficient for analysis.

OpenWeatherMap provides unencrypted API data on basic parameters such as carbon CO2, ozone O3, nitrogen dioxide NO2 and sulfur dioxide S02, as well as data on the contents in the air of fine particles AOD (Aerosol optical depth), which are extremely dangerous for human health. OpenWeatherMap processes massive amounts of accurate data that can be processed for any geo point in the world. This data is obtained from tens of thousands of sensors worldwide from satellites and monitoring systems. On the basis of such data, using modern technology, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data has now become possible to build the analytical system, capable of delivering high-precision forecasts for maximum contaminant levels for a few days in advance. With these forecasts, experts can formulate recommendations, and local authorities are able to take measures to reduce pollution, such as the optimization of the traffic, movement of industrial facilities outside the city, planting of forests and the creating green parks at key locations in major cities, the use of alternative sources energy. Similar measures have already been shown to be effective in some countries — in the UK (London) and in Japan (Tokyo).

OpenWeatherMap provides API to the historical data, as long as to the data obtained as a result of monitoring in real time, which allows a visual comparison, including the virtualized format and helps to identify the sources and periods of maximum and minimum levels of pollution, their possible recurrence, estimate the effectiveness of measures taken to combat the pollution and to understand the weaknesses of the monitoring infrastructure in the big cities.

With the help of a joint analysis of pollution data, historical and current weather and satellite data provided by OpenWeatherMap, one can find the cause of environmental degradation in any region or a particular village — to find out the location of the sources of pollution, to assess the impact of, for example, the formation and dispersion of smog, important factors such as temperature and humidity, wind direction, the level of ultraviolet radiation (UV index), to evaluate the pros and cons of geographic location.

OpenWeatherMap interactive maps

Currently, OpenWeatherMap, together with its partners, develops innovative solutions and models, which allow not only to deliver data and API to different data in the clear mode, as is the case now, but also to visualize all this global information clearly presenting it in the form of graphs and interactive maps which makes the work with data suitable for analysis.

Your business partner from space: How satellite vessel monitoring system OWM AIS helps to run business effectively

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
- William Blake

As you know, who owns the information can either save the world or destroy it. Timely information can protect your health, trigger a stock market crisis or help to win the war.

In today’s world there are many different ways to retrieve data: around our planet circling satellites, drones are flying everywhere and all the sensors are used with complex signal processing, the people are implanting chips all over the world.

At the same time, with regard to satellites, the steady tendency is to reduce them in size, and make them cheaper, which significantly affects the cost, speed of data acquisition and volumes. And there were small satellites supplying huge amounts of data that need to be somehow handled. And handled as fast as possible. And here comes the help of modern technologies, such as cloud, the Internet of Things and Big data.

Behind all this is a real revolution in the field of satellite data. It is already underway and will continue, the further the more interesting things will become. The relatively young field of application of satellite data is collecting AIS data from space — AIS vessels monitoring — tracking the movement of ships along the coastlines and on the open sea and oceans.

This information is very useful for owners of any business, one way or another related to shipping:

• for port services — port owner can check the information provided by the ship on course and destination;

• for ship-owners, shipping agent, freight forwarders and charterers AIS is able to determine the current location of the vessel and monitoring the route on a map, find out complete list of parameters for each AIS vessel and reports to effectively manage small and medium sized fleet;

• for financiers, economists — analysis of the trends, risks, and helps to identify new business opportunities, determining the size of the market and the competition assessment. For example, information about how oil tankers move along the sea routes helps to make certain predictions, which makes it possible to go a little ahead of the market. Similarly, you can keep track of cargo ships, and after cargo carriage — is the blood of the world economy. 

Density map: density of vessels within a specific year or month in the past on interactive map to analyze global picture of marine traffic

But to use all this information, a complex analysis is required, which allows to receive it in visual form, and in a short period of time. For example, the maximum time passed from the moment of receiving the data from the satellites to the moment when the data is available through API OWM AIS services keeps within half an hour.

JSON API to current and historical satellite AIS data for vessel or group of vessels

OWM AIS service enables online mode to watch the movement of about 300,000 ships filtered by more than 50 types and create interactive maps for displaying movement of vessels for each fleet type — such as freight, passenger, and fishing or combined. The presence of historical satellite AIS data, which covers both coasts and oceans, broken down by month, also allows you to display the density of vessels on the interactive map within a particular year or month in the past, to analyze the global picture of maritime traffic.

A very interesting is application area of historical data and dynamic satellite maps. Their joint analysis can greatly facilitate the investigation of accidents, incidents have occurred in the open ocean, as well as help in tracking the pirates and violations of contracts.

 

 

Battle of modern technologies in open ocean: pirates start and win

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
 Drink and the devil had done for the rest
 Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
“ Dead Man’s Chest” ( Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson)

When a talk comes about pirates, usually the images of Captain Jack Sparrow, the traditional “Jolly Roger”, views of barrels of rum and old wooden chests full of gold coins spring to mind. Or it can be stories about Queen Elizabeth of England, Sir Francis Drake who defeated the Spanish Armada, and Sir Henry Morgan notorious for his Caribbean adventures. However maritime piracy did not sink into oblivion. Nowadays this theme has lost its romantic glory, but it still has its significance for a present-day society.

Basically a goal of pirates remains the same that is capture of hostages, goods and gold. And there is a little distinction from ancient times, not gold but ‘black gold’ (i.e. petroleum) consists the main interest of modern pirates these days. Attacking oil tankers that carry both petroleum and money is common practice for pirates in this day and age. Along with that, means used by pirates have greatly changed, namely equipment and technology. The rise in modern maritime piracy started in Somali waters and for a rather short period of time of 10 years it has expanded extremely: armory of pirates has become diversified and their strategies of capturing vessels developed.

According to Tactical Intelligence International, a business providing maritime security, military training and government consulting for over 10 years, pirates have started to use heavy weapons and specific facilities to climb up vessels and conduct their operations from so-called mother ships. Recent tactics of pirates include using of remote bases that enables them to control and carry out operations at a greater distance of the shore, and for a longer time.

One of the main issues of the fight against piracy is pirates going further into the sea and thus making it harder for warships of the European Union to guard potentially dangerous areas. This fact decreases chances of assisting victimized vessels in time even if a message about an act of piracy is received.

Consequently, in spite of cooperation of naval forces of different states and the use of expensive preventive measures such as the presence of armed guards on board, the global problem of piracy has not been solved for several decades and it is still crucial. One of the recommended measures to prevent attacks is to limit access to information on the movement of ships. However unfortunately, international practice shows that these measures are useless or, at least, they work for some time.

Throughout the world, data become easy to access, monitoring systems can be used by the general public. Any attempt to restrict information flows is pointless like the Luddite movement or disapproval of Uber application by taxi drivers operating individually. As a result, digital technologies are widely employed by pirates and drug cartels: hackers break into IT systems of ports, while pirates use AIS monitoring system, and shipping containers with the most expensive goods are tracked by barcode.

One can assume that in the near future the way of the fight against piracy will obtain more technological characteristics.
 Modern technologies in the field of satellite data allow conducting of such measures as the global monitoring of the movement of vessels, not only near the coast, but also in the open ocean, including the detection of ships which hide their personal information, i.e. potential pirates.

 

Photo of the ship from satellites

Current information about vessels for any polygon in an API response from an analytical service OWM AIS and monitoring of suspicious areas on satellite images make it possible to conduct an investigation in a particular area and to detect vessels that do not report their location, as well as to determine where and when a missing ship transmitted its last signal. Owing to technology of OWM Platform Big Data and availability of a direct source of satellite data from the company SpaceQuest, OpenWeatherMap develops complex products such as, for instance, Density Maps where the routes of vessels like oil tankers and container ships are clearly observed via current and historical position of vessel. And thus, knowing the places where pirates are most likely to appear, one can choose areas to monitor the route, the type and the presence of signal from vessel, not across the sea in general, but in definite most dangerous areas.

Density Maps reflects the main ways and the density of the ships movement

Peculiarities of weather forecast for agriculture

No doubt weather is the most important factor determining whether an agricultural enterprise is successful or not. Changes in the weather greatly affect growth, state and amount of crops, its disease incidence, its need for water and fertilizers. Not only plants, but also a whole agricultural market highly depends on weather. Directly and due to some sideway reasons, weather is guilty of loss of the annual world crop in the amount of its three out of four! A mistake in weather forecast can result in crop loss.
Generally, as science and modern technologies evolve, the dependence of crop on weather seems to decrease but of course there is still some correlation of yield amount and weather conditions. Nevertheless, crop loss can be reduced significantly by adjusting taken measures that are based on well-timed and accurate weather forecast. Such weather forecast allows developing recommendations for long-term and seasonal planning and for selection of crops best suitable for expected climatic conditions.
Here one needs to take into consideration some specific features of weather forecast for agriculture which are quite different from those of weather forecast for daily living needs. Efficiency of weather forecasts is higher when attention of forecasters is emphasized on requests of farmers, and farmers know how to use these forecasts and what steps to take. The case is complicated by the fact that the reaction of various agricultural plants to type and intensity of peculiar weather phenomena is different; and this reaction also varies at different stages while plants grow. Furthermore, due to differences in climatic conditions, ways of cultivation of agricultural plants vary at certain world locations, even during the same season.

Thus forecasts for short and long periods of time are of the same great importance. For instance, making decisions based on forecast for late start of the season of growing plants requires significant alterations of ways of cultivation compared with ordinary start.
Organization and implementation of such strategies are considered as decisions of high cost, and usually they require quite a lot of time. That is why preliminary seasonal forecasts should be valid for at least 10 days and be received not less than a week beforehand.
Also measures of diminishing consequences of dangerous meteorological phenomena, of hazardous pests and diseases should be conducted properly in time and as they require some considerable time, so current seasonal forecasts should be received 5 days (at least not later than 3 days!) beforehand preferably.
One should mention here, as weather forecasts are processed for agricultural users, they should be distributed as soon as possible.
Since the season of growing plants starts, the only way to affect the situation is to minimize the impact of severe weather conditions by a timely adoption of preventive measures; the factor of time can be crucial here.
For example, crop loss due to night frosts can be prevented by irrigation, mulching or using smoke bombs.
The main weather phenomena timely information about which can significantly reduce commercial risks are:

• Precipitation, its amount and intensity. Warning of hail should be distributed in advance as there are agricultural plants that are to be protected (e.g., leafy and salad vegetables), and it takes additional expenses to have staff in the fields on constant basis.
• Temperature. In regions with temperate climate slight frosts represent a significant threat to crop, however lowering the temperature below zero has different impact on various kinds of agricultural plants: potato can perish while radish can withstand a drop in temperature up to -4C.
  In any cases current forecasts and chronological forecast data of previous seasons are both important.

So far as while making forecasts for agriculture, information on abnormal weather phenomena and its possibility for specific location should be emphasized; particular performance standards of weather regime and plant growth should be stated. Otherwise how abnormal weather phenomena can be recognized when a performance standard is not fixed. Thus chronological forecast data of previous seasons for this specific location represent particular interest; by scrutinizing which one can create a performance standard of ordinary weather conditions and can trace prevalence and frequency of abnormal weather phenomena.
In view of the above OpenWeatherMap company plans launching of new products designed for agriculture. Let’s see what we have in stores for our users: weather forecast for a specific region up to 10 days, temperature defining for any point worldwide (current and historical data), time, amount and location of precipitation (history and forecast), weather warnings of hail, frosts, storms and other abnormal weather phenomena.

Air pollution: ways to forecast and calculate it

Gazing through the window at the world outside
Wondering will mother earth survive
Hoping that mankind will stop abusing her sometime
- Ozzy Osbourne

In recent years, the fight against air pollution has become global. Humanity, at least when we are speaking about developed countries, starts to realize finally that the Earth is our common home which can get not suitable for living in the near future. Atmospheric pollution takes place when substances harmful for living creatures diffuse throughout the surrounding air, and then this destructive activity has its toxic impact later since it causes global changes of climate of the Earth.
 Processes of global warming, oxidation of world ocean, melting of the ice caps at the poles, thinning of the ozone layer, dense smog over metropolitan areas — these are only a part of the problems that have arisen as a result of air pollution. Generally speaking, air pollution is a penetration of physical, chemical and/or biological contents into air that are usually not common for air, or a change of natural concentration of these contents in the air.
 The most important indicators of air pollution are carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). With the increase in their permissible concentration in the air these gases affect both the environment and human well-being.

Carbon monoxide (CO)
Any process during which the partial burning of carbon-containing substance happens is a possible source of producing of carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide occurs in the atmosphere as a byproduct of industrial plants; petroleum industry and chemical plants contribute to a large amount of carbon monoxide production. The main sources of carbon monoxide are the burning of fossil fuels and the exhaust gases of internal combustion engines. This gas is extremely toxic.
In a human body carbon monoxide is inhaled with air and comes to blood where it combines with hemoglobin to produce carboxyhemoglobin, which assumes the space in hemoglobin that normally carries oxygen, but carboxyhemoglobin is ineffective for delivering oxygen to bodily tissues. Thus it causes seizure, coma and fatality. The most significant damage is caused to central nervous system. Breathing a small concentration of carbon monoxide results in a feeling of heaviness, a feeling of squeezing in head, a heavy headache, severe pain in forehead and temples, dizziness, tremors, thirst, increased heart rate, nausea, vomiting, a rise in body temperature to 38–40C. Weakness in legs indicates influence of carbon monoxide on the spinal cord. High toxicity of carbon monoxide and its lack of colour, odour and taste make this gas extremely dangerous.

Ozone (O3)
Actually ozone is present in a low concentration throughout the Earth’s atmosphere. Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen and is vital for living creatures. Ozone gas forms the crucial ozone layer between about 10 km and 30 km above the Earth’s surface preventing damaging ultraviolet light from reaching the Earth’s surface, to the benefit of both plants and animals. But in close proximity to a human being ozone is much less salutary.
Ozone is a substance of the highest, the first class of hazard since it is a very strong oxidizer, which is extremely toxic to humans, and is the third largest greenhouse gas originating in human activity of environmental pollution.
As a component of smog, ozone is not discharged to the atmosphere, and is formed by the action of daylight UV rays on ozone precursors. Ozone precursors are a group of pollutants, predominantly those emitted during the combustion of fossil fuels; these are nitrogen oxides, volatile hydrocarbons and some other compounds.
Ozone is harmful to living beings, its action slow but serious. Long-term exposure to air rich in ozone has been shown to increase risk of cardiovascular diseases, respiratory problems, developing atherosclerosis.
Exposure to high ozone concentration above the permissible limit values is linked to headache, mucosal irritation, coughing, dizziness, fatigue, weak cardiac activity. Breathing of ozone leads to emergence or exacerbation of respiratory diseases, populations at risk are children, the elderly, and asthmatics.
Ozone adversely affects not only human health, but it is also harmful for agriculture: tons of crop of rice, wheat, soybeans and corn are lost annually due to toxicity of this gas.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2)
Sulfur dioxide is the most common air contaminant as many sorts of fuel contain sulfur. This gas has a general toxic effect and causes respiratory problems. Symptoms of poisoning are the following: a cough, rheum, hoarseness, strong sore throat and a peculiar taste in the mouth. Breathing of high concentration of sulfur dioxide results in difficulty swallowing, choking, speech disorder, nausea and vomiting, acute pulmonary edema may develop.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a reddish-brown gas that has a characteristic sharp, biting odor. The main sources of nitrogen dioxide are internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels. Often this brown gas is called “Megapolis gas”. Its presence in the atmosphere contributes to acid rains and reduces the ozone layer. Nitrogen dioxide is highly toxic, and it adversely affects the sense of smell. Thus, a 10-minute inhalation of nitrogen dioxide is enough for a person to stop feeling smell; dryness in the throat appears, mucous membranes become irritated. Even small concentrations of nitrogen dioxide irritate the respiratory tract, and high concentrations cause pulmonary edema. Along with influence on the respiratory tract and lungs, nitrogen causes changes in blood composition, in particular, it reduces hemoglobin concentration in blood. Cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the results of the harmful effects of nitrogen dioxide.

One of the challenges of global and local assessment of the environmental situation consists in the fact that the values of the basic indicators vary widely not only from region to region but also even within a few kilometers. It depends on many factors such as anthropogenic (the proximity of fuel combustion sources, of industrial plants, actively ongoing agriculture and street traffic) and weather factors (wind direction, humidity and sunlight). Geographical location of sources of pollution and objects under consideration is not less important. All this must be taken into account in making forecasts, in development of measures to fix critical situations and in creating long-term plans for environmental improvement.
 One should understand that all these measures are unity of specific factors, which can be measured, calculated, forecast, and as a result, regulated. And modern technologies already allow doing that.
 Not wanting to stay away from the solution of world problems, OpenWeatherMap company has released a new product called “Air quality data” based on the technology of Big Data Platform in April 2016. There is a package of APIs for data on the main indicators of air pollution, on the basis of which it is possible to adequately and accurately evaluate the environmental situation anywhere in the world and create forecasts for the adoption of preventive measures.
 APIs for historical data (since November 2015) allow to create analytical services for the analysis of situation in the past, taking into account the impact of seasonal, weather and anthropogenic factors. It also helps making conclusions on necessary measures to improve the environmental situation across the countries and even continents.
 However no matter how advanced technology is, people and their determination to take the necessary steps have always been and will be the crucial power in preventing a potential disaster.