Meet the partner: BSC at the 2025 (Catalan) Congress on Air Quality
- Florence Gignac
- Nov 17
- 4 min read
The New EU Directive, Public Health and Vulnerability, and What This Means for UrbanAIR in Barcelona
On the 16th and 17th of October, Florence Gignac, Cristina Carnerero, Álvaro Criado, and Jan Mateu from Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), were actively involved in the 2025 Air Quality Congress at the Fira Sabadell. The Congress is a biennial meeting of decision-makers, researchers and private-sector actors committed to cleaner and healthier air across Catalonia. This year the event brought together more than 350 municipal, regional, and provincial actors. For the BSC team, there were two key takeaways for UrbanAIR.
Takeaway 1
On everyone’s lips: the new European Air Quality Directive
One of the most discussed topics at the congress was the new European Air Quality Directive (2024/2881), a milestone that brings EU air quality standards closer to the WHO guidelines.
Rooted in the protection of public health and the ambition of achieving zero air pollution by 2050, this new legislation is transforming how European cities monitor air pollution, encouraging the use of advanced modeling tools to guide effective action. The directive requires member states to set and enforce stricter air-quality standards by 2030, lowering annual limit values for key pollutants such as PM₂.₅ and NO₂. It also obliges them to develop air-quality and short-term action plans in areas where limits are exceeded, strengthen monitoring, and improve public access to air-quality information.
Monitoring air today and planning for a cleaner air future
For projects like UrbanAIR, this development is significant, underscoring the need for robust, real-time data and highly collaborative science-policy interfaces to guide local decision-making. This aligns perfectly with the work and focus of the BSC team in the project, combining expertise in modelling (with our air quality forecasting system CALIOPE) and in multi-stakeholder engagement.
Beyond the monitoring, the key question is also how to effectively reduce high levels of air pollutants. Insights shared during the congress emphasised the importance of considering citizen behaviours and mobility patterns when designing urban air quality strategies.
Takeaway 2
Link air quality and vulnerability to better bring science into policy
The BSC team hosted a session on “Generating Scientific Evidence to Inform Decision-Making”, featuring a presentation of the project by Álvaro and a panel discussion led by Cristina. Among the many themes discussed by the panellists, one resonated strongly: the importance of linking this air quality information with social vulnerability assessments to better understand who is most affected and to better inform urban planning policies.
All of this resonates through UrbanAIR, as we are working to help cities understand and act on these connections, combining data science, atmospheric modelling, and stakeholder engagement to make urban air cleaner and more equitable.
The role of BSC in UrbanAIR
In UrbanAIR, BSC oversees the development and evaluation of data fusion and super-resolution methods that improve urban-scale assessments of air quality and heat. These methods incorporate observational data with different levels of associated uncertainty. This will render a non-blurring, street-level, data-based air quality/urban heat model adapted to incorporate satellite and sparse ground sensor observations.
Moreover, BSC partners with VITO to lead the co-production with users of the UrbanAIR services. This involves working directly with both stakeholders in Barcelona and Antwerp and with scientists and platform developers across the project consortium to:
understand how the UrbanAIR tools can match real-world needs;
develop and test prototypes; and
assess the value and usability of UrbanAIR’s digital twin tools.
About the Barcelona Supercomputing Center
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain and one of the key HPC institutions in Europe. It hosts MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers on the continent, is a founding member of the former PRACE infrastructure, and the current hosting entity for EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU).
BSC's mission is to research, develop, and manage advanced computing technologies to accelerate scientific progress. It integrates high-performance computing service provision with research in computer and computational sciences, spanning life, earth, and engineering disciplines. With over 1,000 staff from more than 60 countries, it fosters international collaboration and cross-sector innovation.
Within BSC, the Earth Sciences Department is one of Europe’s leading research groups in air quality, atmospheric composition modelling, and climate prediction. The Earth System Services research group focuses on co-producing climate and air quality services and supporting knowledge and technology of state-of-the-art transfer across scientific and policy communities at local, national, and international levels. It collaborates with public authorities, civil society organisations, international research networks, and private companies to create operational and semi-operational forecast services on climate, air quality, and airborne dust, and cutting-edge forecasting services tailored to societal needs.
The BSC Team
Jan Mateu Armengol – Principal Investigator
Sam Pickard – Researcher
Cristina Carnerero – Researcher
Álvaro Criado Romero – Researcher
Florence Gignac, PhD – Researcher
Arianna Cristiani – Project Manager
Meet the whole UrbanAIR project by following #UrbanAIRteam.
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