The city of Beijing has signed an agreement with IBM Corp to make use of advanced weather forecasting and cloud computing technologies to help tackle the Chinese capital's persistent smog, Reuters reported.
After a series of pollution scares and scandals, China's central government has promised to reverse some of the damage done to the nation's sky, rivers and soil by more than three decades of growth. But China will first have to improve data collection, monitoring and forecasting capabilities before it can work on cutting smog and pollution.
Under the agreement with IBM, the "Green Horizon" 10-year initiative, which aims to draw on IBM's forecasting expertise and the collection of real-time emissions data to predict smog build-ups, will have the Beijing's city government as one of the partners in the company. "It is about how we can help cities improve management based on 'Big Data', and better predict (pollution) with accuracy so the government can take proactive action," said Xiaowei Shen, China director of IBM Research, speaking at IBM's lab in Beijing's northwest high-tech district of Zhongguancun.
Although an alert system based on 35 monitoring stations is already being used by the Beijing city, allowing it to shut schools and factories and cut traffic three days in advance, residents have still complained that enough is not being done. "Predicting is helpful because it helps prevent exposure, but it is not enough if it is only about knowing which days to put on masks or stay indoors," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Environmental and Public Affairs, a non-government group that works to improve emissions data transparency.
A more effective plan to take action could also be established if better data about the make-up of Beijing's pollution is available, said Wang Tao, resident scholar at the energy and climate change program at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. "They can find out if stopping cars running is more effective, or stopping pollution from heavy industries," Wang said.
Meanwhile, new commercial opportunities in pollution control and renewable energy in China could also be generated through the Green Horizon initiative, IBM representatives said.
