Air quality
OpenMapX shows air-quality observations and forecasts with their source, freshness, and calculation method. It selects a location's regional index when enough suitable evidence is available. You can request another supported standard for comparison without replacing that local headline.
Supported methods include US EPA 2024 AQI, European AQI, UK DAQI, India NAQI, China's HJ 633-2026, and published Canadian AQHI. Availability depends on evidence that meets each method's requirements. A supported method does not establish local coverage or a calculable index at every point in that country.
What a result means
A result can contain several evidence records:
- official agency or community publications;
- qualifying reference/regulatory ground-monitor concentrations;
- modeled grid evidence, currently including Open-Meteo/CAMS;
- raw pollutant values when a complete regional index cannot be calculated.
The headline identifies the selected local index when it can be calculated or accepted from a qualifying publication. If only raw concentrations qualify, OpenMapX shows those without assigning an index category. Incomplete observation windows can prevent an index from being available.
In the UK, an official UK-AIR station DAQI can headline only when the station is within 25 km. In Canada, ECCC's nearest named-community values are retained as secondary evidence because the current GeoMet contract does not prove that the community covers the requested point or identify conventional AQHI versus AQHI+ per record.
Each record discloses whether it is ground, model, or hybrid evidence; who owns and republishes it; the observation/forecast/validity times; spatial support; quality and freshness; original units; method revision; source URLs, license, and attribution. Open-Meteo's own European and US AQI fields are shown only as provider-native methods. They are not labelled as reviewed OpenMapX standards.
Air quality at a place
Expand Air quality below Weather in a place panel to load the canonical result for that location. The section is lazy: merely opening a place does not make an air-quality request. Its headline always remains the locally applicable program selected by the server. If no qualifying local index can be produced, the panel says so and shows the selected raw concentration instead of assigning it an invented category.
Ground-monitor, model, and hybrid evidence stay in separate cards. Each card names its basis and quality status and shows the available observation or forecast time, validity, freshness, monitoring location or model grid, distance, station class, pollutant completeness, and estimated or gap-filled flags. Source owner, provider, license, direct attribution, and methodology links travel with the evidence. Preliminary, stale, partial, and provider-degraded results remain visible as such rather than being styled as fully verified readings.
The comparison menu can request one of the other supported standards without replacing the local headline. The choice lasts only while the place panel is mounted; it is not put in the URL, browser storage, or user profile. If the requested method cannot be applied, the panel reports that the comparison is unavailable and, when known, explains which evidence requirement was missing.
The optional 48-hour forecast is fetched only after you expand it. Forecast frames explicitly say whether they are available, partial, or unavailable, and each canonical ground or model series is rendered independently. OpenMapX does not draw a continuous line between unrelated sources or fill missing hourly categories from a daily publication.
The separate air-quality monitor map plots raw station concentrations with freshness, quality, and provenance signals. Its continuous colors are deliberately not AQI health categories.
Category names and status text accompany color so you can read the result without interpreting the color scale alone.
Availability and degraded results
A complete response can contain fresh raw concentrations without a regional index. A partial result can retain useful evidence while a provider, comparison, source restriction, or freshness problem prevents a complete answer. Unavailable means no eligible evidence was found; it does not mean the air is clean.
Forecasts follow the source's validity intervals. A daily published category is not expanded into invented hourly categories. Check each evidence card's method, time, and spatial coverage, especially when comparing a modeled grid with a ground monitor.
Developers should use the air-quality integration reference for evidence selection, response fields, and standard validation.
Air-quality readings and modeled forecasts can be delayed, incomplete, or spatially unrepresentative. OpenMapX explains provenance and calculation status but does not certify regulatory compliance or replace local health-agency guidance.