Mapping data is everywhere now. If you have a smart phone or a Facebook account, you’re already using it all the time. A cornucopia of data streams has become available to the public, information is pouring in through everyone’s gadgets, and platforms like Google Maps allow for clever geospatial data geeks to easily log it and access it. But the killer app isn’t just about where your friends are eating sushi, or where the best sales are. It’s where the globe is being poisoned.

That’s the thinking behind Eye On Earth, a new cloud computing project created by Microsoft, the European Environment Agency and geospatial mapping company Esri that will allow citizens of Europe to monitor air quality, water quality and noise pollution across the continent and map the results in real time.

Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, have been used for decades by researchers to study and map regional trends. But unlike traditional GIS platforms that are either statically updated from databases or completely crowdsourced, Eye On Earth combines both, allowing users to simultaneously monitor government readings on water quality, air quality, and noise quality data as well as map their own input. It has great advantages over current environmental monitoring projects and it’s pretty fracking easy to use.

Blue dots represent fixed noise sources or water treatment centers.

Divided into three separate categories — AirWatch, NoiseWatch, and WaterWatch — Eye On Earth is currently able to provide data to 600 million citizens across the EEA’s 7 country reach. NoiseWatch, for example, is currently based in 164 cities.

That’s not to say that Eye on Earth is the first geospatial project that attempts to map our dear, increasingly polluted earth. Mapping projects have already been used to map toxic chemical dumps in Jordan and green projects and air quality in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. In 2006, environmentalist Ma Jun of China founded the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, launched The China Pollution Map and later the China Air Pollution Map to promote collaborative efforts to adress the problem of pollution in China.

Eye on Earth however, marks a huge leap in anybody’s attempt so far to crowd source pollution data on such a large scale. And while the map is currently limited to Europe, there have been plans to increase its scope.

Users input their environmental reports, which are mapped against government data.

“This platform, based on ArcGIS Online, is putting environmental information into the hands of many,” Jack Dangermond, the president of Esri, said in a release. “It equips people with tools and information to engage in conversation, analysis, reporting and policy making. In addition, this platform, developed for Europe, can be implemented in other countries and regions of the world.”

For the time being, Eye On Earth probably isn’t going to eliminate the need to reach for an inhaler when the air gets gross or keep a taxi driver from leaning on his horn in traffic—but it is one of the first large scale mapping projects that attempts to combine citizen input and official data into one happy partnership that at least promises the potential for greener futures.

Connections:

• Obama’s Hit The Keystone Pipeline With An Extra-Large Delay
• Ten Percent of China is a Steaming Toxic Metal Land Dump