Seoul’s Gangnam District Partners with Kaiterra to Support First Air Quality Improvement Effort for Korea

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (November 7, 2018) — In an effort to better understand air pollution in the city and design effective policies to combat pollution exposure, Seoul’s Gangnam City Government and Kaiterra, a leader in air quality monitoring, today announce an official partnership to develop a network of outdoor air quality monitors throughout the district. The partnership begins with a one-year pilot program during which 44 outdoor air quality monitors will be installed throughout a several hundred square kilometer area in Gangnam, located in the center of Seoul.

To date, no other air quality monitoring effort of this magnitude has been initiated in Korea, with this high density of monitors being rare even on a global scale. “With the help of Kaiterra, we have established a fine dust monitoring system for each area in Gangnam,” remarked Shin, Yeon-soon, director of environment management at Gangnam District  Office. “In areas where the fine dust pollution of major arterial roads is high, water cleaning and vacuum suction cleaning will be performed to remove fine dust.”

“With a mix of air pollution coming from within the city and blowing in from the outside, it’s difficult for the City of Gangnam to have deep insight into why and where it’s coming from,” added Liam Bates, co-founder and CEO of Kaiterra. “Our goal is to support Gangnam officials by arming them with air quality data which will help in the design of effective policies to combat pollution and exposure. The hope is this partnership ultimately inspires residents to do something about the problem instead of just knowing the city’s air is overall not good.”

Kaiterra’s outdoor air quality monitor will be installed in Gangnam. All of the brand’s monitors require little maintenance and can measure real-time hyperlocal pollution levels. Data collected by these monitors will be used to map the spatial and temporal variation in pollution levels throughout Gangnam, and support the modern city in its effort to explore the identification of air pollution sources and air quality forecasting and actually take action against specific sources.

The first set of monitors will be installed on November 7. Among the 44 locations that will be monitored include Gangnam Square on Gangnam Avenue.

About Kaiterra

Kaiterra creates high-accuracy air quality monitors for consumers, businesses, and industrial use, with the goal of better understanding and reducing the world’s air pollution. A global company co-founded by Swiss entrepreneur and Forbes 30 under 30 member, Liam Bates, Kaiterra devices can be found across the world in use by consumers, the built environment, and local governments. For more information, visit https://kaiterra.com/ .