🌬 AirBase

An easy downloader for air quality data provided by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The data is available for download at the portal, but the interface makes it a bit time consuming to do bulk downloads. Hence, an easy Python-based interface.

Read the full documentation at https://airbase.readthedocs.io.

🔌 Installation

To install airbase, simply run

$ pip install airbase

🚀 Getting Started

🗺 Get info about available countries and pollutants:

>>> import airbase
>>> client = airbase.AirbaseClient()
>>> client.countries
frozenset({'LI', 'CY', 'IE', 'LV', 'BE', 'EE', ...})

>>> client.pollutants
frozenset({'Co', 'sum-PCB', 'PCB-26', 'HNO3', ...})


>>> client.search_pollutant("O3")
[{'poll': 'O3', 'id': 7}, {'poll': 'NO3', 'id': 46}, ...]

🗂 Request download links from the server and save the resulting Parquet files into a directory:

>>> r = client.request("Verified", "NL", "DE", poll=["NO3", "NO3- in PM2.5", "NO3- in PM10"])
>>> r.download(dir="data", skip_existing=True)
summary : 100%|█████| 2/2 [00:00<00:00,  4.48requests/s]
URLs    : 100%|█████| 29.0/29.0 [00:00<00:00, 490URL/s]
download: 386kb [00:00, 570kb/s]

📦 Download the entire dataset (not for the faint of heart):

>>> r = client.request()
>>> r.download_to_directory("data")
summary : 100%|█████| 39/39 [00:15<00:00,  2.54requests/s]
URLs    : 100%|█████| 47.0k/47.0k [00:00<00:00, 77.7kURL/s]
download: 20.6Gb [54:36, 6.74Mb/s]

🌡 Don't forget to get the metadata about the measurement stations:

>>> client.download_metadata("data/metadata.csv")
Writing metadata to data/metadata.csv...

🚆 Command line interface

Historical data delivered between 2002 and 2012

$ airbase historical --help
Usage: airbase historical [OPTIONS]

  Historical Airbase data delivered between 2002 and 2012 before Air Quality
  Directive 2008/50/EC entered into force.

  Use -c/--country and -p/--pollutant to restrict the download specific countries and pollutants, e.g.
  - download only Norwegian, Danish and Finish sites
    airbase historical -c NO -c DK -c FI
  - download only SO2, PM10 and PM2.5 observations
    airbase historical -p SO2 -p PM10 -p PM2.5

  Use -C/--city to further restrict the download to specific cities, e.g.
  - download only PM10 and PM2.5 from Valletta, the Capital of Malta
    airbase historical -C Valletta -c MT -p PM10 -p PM2.5

Options:
  -c, --country [AD|AL|AT|...]
  -p, --pollutant [k|V|NT|...]
  -C, --city TEXT                 only from selected <cities>
  -F, --aggregation-type, --frequency [hourly|daily|other]
                                  only hourly data, daily data or other
                                  aggregation frequency
  -M, --metadata                  download station metadata
  --path PATH                     [default: data/historical]
  -n, --dry-run, --summary        Total download files/size, nothing will be
                                  downloaded.
  -O, --overwrite                 Re-download existing files.
  -q, --quiet                     No progress-bar.
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

Verified data from 2013 to 2024

$ airbase verified --help
Usage: airbase verified [OPTIONS]

  Verified data (E1a) from 2013 to 2024 reported by countries by 30 September
  each year for the previous year.

  Use -c/--country and -p/--pollutant to restrict the download specific countries and pollutants, e.g.
  - download only Norwegian, Danish and Finish sites
    airbase verified -c NO -c DK -c FI
  - download only SO2, PM10 and PM2.5 observations
    airbase verified -p SO2 -p PM10 -p PM2.5

  Use -C/--city to further restrict the download to specific cities, e.g.
  - download only PM10 and PM2.5 from Valletta, the Capital of Malta
    airbase verified -C Valletta -c MT -p PM10 -p PM2.5

Options:
  -c, --country [AD|AL|AT|...]
  -p, --pollutant [k|V|NT|...]
  -C, --city TEXT                 only from selected <cities>
  -F, --aggregation-type, --frequency [hourly|daily|other]
                                  only hourly data, daily data or other
                                  aggregation frequency
  -M, --metadata                  download station metadata
  --path PATH                     [default: data/verified]
  -n, --dry-run, --summary        Total download files/size, nothing will be
                                  downloaded.
  -O, --overwrite                 Re-download existing files.
  -q, --quiet                     No progress-bar.
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

Unverified data from the beginning of 2025

$ airbase unverified --help
Usage: airbase unverified [OPTIONS]

  Unverified data transmitted continuously (Up-To-Date/UTD/E2a) data from the
  beginning of 2025.

  Use -c/--country and -p/--pollutant to restrict the download specific countries and pollutants, e.g.
  - download only Norwegian, Danish and Finish sites
    airbase unverified -c NO -c DK -c FI
  - download only SO2, PM10 and PM2.5 observations
    airbase unverified -p SO2 -p PM10 -p PM2.5

  Use -C/--city to further restrict the download to specific cities, e.g.
  - download only PM10 and PM2.5 from Valletta, the Capital of Malta
    airbase unverified -C Valletta -c MT -p PM10 -p PM2.5

Options:
  -c, --country [AD|AL|AT|...]
  -p, --pollutant [k|V|NT|...]
  -C, --city TEXT                 only from selected <cities>
  -F, --aggregation-type, --frequency [hourly|daily|other]
                                  only hourly data, daily data or other
                                  aggregation frequency
  -M, --metadata                  download station metadata
  --path PATH                     [default: data/unverified]
  -n, --dry-run, --summary        Total download files/size, nothing will be
                                  downloaded.
  -O, --overwrite                 Re-download existing files.
  -q, --quiet                     No progress-bar.
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

🛣 Roadmap

• Parallel CSV downloads Contributed by @avaldebe
• CLI to avoid using Python all together Contributed by @avaldebe
• Data wrangling module for AirBase output data