The Regional Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Trade, and Tourism, through Ivace+i Innovation, is funding the development of a cutting-edge system designed to predict and issue health alerts related to atmospheric pollution.
The objective is to create a platform that integrates data from satellites, ground stations, and predictive models. This platform will leverage advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and remote sensing, to provide accurate and timely information.
The Institute for Advanced Information and Communication Technology Applications (ITACA) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) is coordinating this strategic initiative, known as PREDATICS. The project also involves the AIDIMME technology center and companies such as Sciling, Gemini Tools, and G-Agua. The initiative is co-funded by the European Union under the FEDER Comunitat Valenciana programme for the 2021–2027 period.
The goal of PREDATICS is to develop a solution capable of issuing alerts to individuals with acute or chronic respiratory conditions—those most vulnerable to pollutants and airborne particles. By providing early warnings of hazardous pollution levels, the platform aims to mitigate health risks and enhance public safety.
To this end, the multidisciplinary team is working on a pioneering predictive system capable of estimating air quality with advanced precision. The system will operate on a “street-level” scale and issue alerts far enough in advance to allow both the public and health authorities to take preventative measures or modify activities to reduce exposure to harmful pollutants.
Project challenges and objectives
The project aims to improve understanding of the interaction between pollution, weather conditions, air quality and human health. Taking advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT), the platform will predict pollution peaks and provide early warnings to the population.
This digital platform will complement the data already provided by the air quality stations of the Valencian Air Pollution Monitoring and Control Network with records obtained by processing satellite data. Additionally, two terrestrial sensor networks will be deployed: one to measure particulate matter in inland municipalities and another to quantify nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels—primarily caused by vehicle emissions—in the city of Valencia.
With all this information, a predictive model will be developed that will associate pollution data with weather conditions and the use of health resources by patients with respiratory diseases.
Work of the partners
Given the scale of the challenge, a consortium of five key agents from the innovation ecosystem has been formed. The ITACA-UPV serves as the project coordinator, contributing expertise from two of its research groups specializing in TIC applications for health and climate change mitigation.
The consortium includes:
- AIDIMME, which brings expertise in remote sensing, satellite image analysis, and heritage conservation through laser scanning and photogrammetry.
- G-Agua, focusing on air quality and other environmental indicators.
- Geminis Tools, which develops software for decision-making related to pollution and climate change mitigation.
- Sciling, specializing in natural language processing, computer vision, data mining, and AI, with specific experience in monitoring traffic-related pollutants.
The partners emphasize that PREDATICS aspires not only to improve regional quality of life but also to serve as a European model for technological innovation and sustainability. They highlight plans to design an interactive web application to enable real-time data visualization and user-friendly queries.
The initiative is in line with the conclusions of the Strategic Committee for Specialised Innovation (CEIE) in Health, which urges the development of new ways to control and prevent chronicity and fragility. Specifically, the platform will make it possible to monitor and prevent acute episodes in chronic diseases through the use of AI and Big Data tools applied to data from medical records, consumption of health services, pollutants and meteorological variables.
Region, S3, which is coordinated by the Regional Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism.