Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration
The Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) maintains a site showing real time ambient air monitoring data from municipal and non-municipal monitoring sites in Taiwan. While the site maintains an API (swagger docs), signing up for an API key may require a Taiwan national ID number, and requesting the API key has not been successful.
As of November 2023, there are 85 active stations reporting air quality and other meteorological data (station map).
Currently, data can be obtained by requesting the measurements for each station using the station ID in the following format:
https://airtw.moenv.gov.tw/json/airlist/airlist_{station_id}_{yyyyMMddHH}.json
We can then join that measurement object to the appropriate station object from the stations endpoint to get the station name and location information. All of the stations with their coordinates can be found here:
https://airtw.moenv.gov.tw/gis_ajax.aspx?Type=GetAQInfo&Layer=EPA&QueryTime=yyyy/MM/DD%20hh:mm:ss
The above endpoints were identified through an analysis of network traffic and API calls made by the Taiwan EPA’s web interface. These endpoints are used internally by the website to fetch real-time air quality measurements and station information, respectively.
The URL for data fetching requires both the station ID and a timestamp in the ‘yyyyMMddHH’ format, using this timestamp to request the latest data. The station ID corresponds to one of the 85 active monitoring stations.
To combine the measurements and the station data, a 2 step process is used: Fetch the measurements for a given station ID and timestamp. Fetch the station details and join this with the measurement using the station ID. Example data:
// measurement
'136': {
date: '2024/01/17 00:00',
county: '彰化縣',
sitename: '大城',
sitetype: '其它站',
AQI: '38',
AVPM25: '7.4',
PM25_FIX: '5',
AVPM10: '29',
PM10_FIX: '28',
AVO3: '41',
O3_FIX: '31.4',
AVCO: '0.10',
CO_FIX: '0.19',
SO2_FIX: '0.3',
NO2_FIX: '4.5',
POLLUTANT: '',
AVSO2: '0'
}// station
{
SiteID: '136',
SiteName: '大城',
AQI: '79',
ViewName: '大城',
AreaName: '中部空品區',
AreaID: '3',
COUNTY_Eng: 'Changhua',
POLLUTANT: '細懸浮微粒',
SiteAddres: '彰化縣大城鄉西厝路98號',
TWD97_Lon: 120.26964167,
TWD97_Lat: 23.85493056,
SiteType: '其它站',
SiteType2: '中央政府',
siteowner: ''
}// combined
'136': {
date: '2024/01/17 00:00',
county: '彰化縣',
sitename: '大城',
sitetype: '其它站',
AQI: '79',
AVPM25: '7.4',
PM25_FIX: '5',
AVPM10: '29',
PM10_FIX: '28',
AVO3: '41',
O3_FIX: '31.4',
AVCO: '0.10',
CO_FIX: '0.19',
SO2_FIX: '0.3',
NO2_FIX: '4.5',
POLLUTANT: '細懸浮微粒',
AVSO2: '0',
SiteID: '136',
SiteName: '大城',
ViewName: '大城',
AreaName: '中部空品區',
AreaID: '3',
COUNTY_Eng: 'Changhua',
SiteAddres: '彰化縣大城鄉西厝路98號',
TWD97_Lon: 120.26964167,
TWD97_Lat: 23.85493056,
SiteType: '其它站',
SiteType2: '中央政府',
siteowner: ''
}- Data frequency: hourly / daily
- API provides hourly and daily values (not currently used)
- Internal API calls provide hourly real-time data (currently used)
- Historical data access: 1 year
- Via API
- Time recording: end of hour (time-ending) - Inferred by seeing data reported shortly after the turn of the hour
| Description | Key | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Nitrous Oxides | NOx | ppb |
| Particulate Matter ≤ 10 μm | PM10 | μg/m³ |
| Total Hydrocarbons | THC | ppm |
| Carbon Monoxide | CO | ppm |
| Methane | CH4 | ppm |
| Sulfur Dioxide | SO2 | ppb |
| Particulate Matter ≤ 2.5 μm | PM2.5 | μg/m³ |
| Nitrogen Dioxide | NO2 | ppb |
| Non-Methane Hydrocarbons | NMHC | ppm |
| Nitric Oxide | NO | ppb |
| Ozone | O3 | ppb |
| Description | Key | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Rainfall | RAINFALL | mm |
| Relative Humidity | RH | % |
| Ambient Temperature | AMB_TEMP | ℃ |
| Wind Speed | WIND_SPEED | m/sec |
| Wind Direction | WIND_DIREC | degrees |
| Wind Direction (Hourly) | WD_HR | degrees |
| Atmospheric Pressure | PRESSURE | hPa |
| Wind Speed (Hourly) | WS_HR | m/sec |
| Rain Intensity | RAIN_INT | mm |
The official API is not being utilized currently as we were unable to obtain an API key. These URLs are not currently utilized but may become useful if an API key is obtained, in which case our current fetch adapter would likely become deprecated.
- swagger docs -> needs API Key
https://data.moenv.gov.tw/swagger/en/ - station coordinates and IDs
https://data.moenv.gov.tw/api/v2/aqx_p_07?${api-key} - hourly data
https://data.moenv.gov.tw/api/v2/aqx_p_13?${api-key} - station map
https://airtw.moenv.gov.tw/CHT/EnvMonitoring/Central/article_station.aspx - api terms says user with an api key can make 5000 requests a day
https://airtw.moenv.gov.tw/api-term
API DATA These two API endpoints make available data from municipal or non-municipal stations. Both sets would need to be accessed to get the full dataset. API key needed
-
municipal:
https://data.epa.gov.tw/api/v2/aqx_p_133?api_key= -
non-municipal:
https://data.epa.gov.tw/api/v2/aqx_p_134?api_key=
There are a few licenses mentioned on the site:
https://data.gov.tw/licenses
- CC BY 4.0
- CC BY 4.0-SA
- CC0
- OFL (Open font license)
- OGL (Open Government Data License)
However, the Ministry of Environment specifically mentions the OGL here: https://data.moenv.gov.tw/en/data-regulations
We should continue to reach out in hopes of obtaining an API key from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration