About samoEKO
samoEKO shows the air in Bosnia and Herzegovina for every municipality and every hour, and in summer also where satellites see a wildfire. The site is free and needs no registration.
Who is behind samoEKO
samoEKO is a brand of samoLabs, a software company in Juelich, Germany. samoLabs built the site and runs it, from fetching the data to the text in five languages.
Why samoEKO
In winter, smog can sit over the valley towns for days. In summer, forest and scrub burn on the karst. There are data on both: the official stations measure the air every hour, and satellites record the heat of fires several times a day.
These data are public and come from several institutions, each in its own format. samoEKO brings them onto one page and writes them up so that a phone screen shows at once what they mean for your place.
We do this out of love for nature, people and our countries.
Where the data come from
The air readings come from the official stations in BiH and the region. We receive them through the European Environment Agency (EEA) and show them unchanged. Without that network this site would have nothing to show. Fire detections come from NASA (FIRMS), burnt areas and fire danger from the European Copernicus programme (EFFIS and GWIS). We calculate the municipal level and the warning ourselves, following the published EEA rules.
Open method
How the level is set and which limit values apply is described on the page How we measure. What satellites cannot see is explained in the Knowledge section. We never show a model estimate as a measurement. Students and researchers can download the data through an open interface (API), and the key is free for universities.
How samoEKO is funded
samoEKO is independent. For now samoLabs pays for running the site in full. Once our own monitoring stations are in place, a local company will be able to pay for running a station as its sponsor.
Our independence rules
- We show readings from the official stations unchanged. We do not hide or soften a bad value.
- A sponsor pays for running a station, nothing more. The station shows the sponsor’s name and address, and below it: The sponsor funds the operation of the station and has no influence on how data are measured, processed or published. Nor does the sponsor choose the site or decide on warnings. We write this into every contract.
- We do not accept companies that operate industrial plants emitting into the air as sponsors.
- We do not accuse people or companies. We show what was measured, with the place and hour of the reading.
Citing samoEKO
Anyone who quotes samoEKO, in the media or on social networks, names samoEKO as the source and links to the page the information was taken from. Our terms of use require this. The original data are also subject to their providers’ licences, listed on the Data sources page.
In preparation: reporting waste burning and illegal dumping
Reporting is not open yet. Once it is, you will be able to report waste burning or illegal dumping in nature here. We will publish the rules for reports before then.
For companies: sponsoring a station
Once our monitoring stations are in the field, a local company will be able to sponsor one of them. Sponsorship is advertising, with a contract and an invoice. If you are interested, write to info@samolabs.de.
Support samoEKO
samoEKO is run by samoLabs, a company based in Germany. Payment is voluntary, gives no right to any service and is not a donation to a non-profit organisation.
Contact
Send questions and corrections to info@samolabs.de. We reply in the languages of this site.
samoEKO is a brand of samoLabs, Koelner Landstrasse 36, 52428 Juelich, Germany.