The official start of the MONI.CA Project: Monitoring Air Quality along the Adriatic

The official start of the EU project MONI.CA - Monitoring Air Quality along the Adriatic was marked with a working meeting held at the RIT Croatia campus in Dubrovnik, on October 5-6, 2023.

The "Air MONItoring aCross Adriatic - MONI.CA" project, which will be implemented over the next 18 months, represents an important contribution to environmental preservation and public health in the Adriatic Sea region, and it is funded by the Interreg Italy-Croatia 2021-2027 program, under Priority 2: Green and Resilient Common Environment, with a total amount of EUR 213,384.12, of which the EU finances 80% of the project's total value.

The leading partner of the project is RIT Croatia, while the project partner is from Padua, Italy. The main goal of the MONI.CA project is to contribute to addressing air quality-related issues and support air quality assessment and monitoring activities in Croatia and Italy. Additionally, the project aims to establish cross-border pilot activities for air monitoring in urban areas using smart technologies.

Information collected through the MONI.CA project will be made available to decision-makers in cities, enabling them to identify sources of pollution and take preventive action beneficial to the local population. This project stands out as innovative because there have been no integrated solutions in this area until now.

This event brought together prominent experts from the project partners, RIT Croatia and Eduforma Srl, who discussed the achievements to date and the future steps of the MONI.CA project. Mr. Božo Benić, the Head of the Administrative Department for Urbanism, Spatial Planning, and Environmental Protection, from the City of Dubrovnik, also attended the meeting representing the local decision-makers who will play a key role in utilizing the project's results. Benić, in his address, emphasized the long tradition of environmental protection in the Dubrovnik area, highlighting the importance of such projects in encouraging investments, regional cooperation, and addressing sustainable development challenges.

"The goal of the MONI.CA project is to contribute to solving emerging air quality problems and to proactively address the health of urban populations through effective problem-solving with smart technologies. We hope that the collected information will be beneficial to city authorities, enabling them to detect sources of pollution and take preventive action for the well-being of the local population," stated the project leader, Dr. Martin Žagar, a senior lecturer at RIT Croatia.