SYLVA bioaerosols

More than 80 million Europeans are allergic to pollen, and pollen-related health impacts cost society over €50 billion per year. Meanwhile, the technology used to monitor pollen release dates back to 1950. SYLVA, a Finnish-coordinated EU project aims to implement automated measurement systems and provide game-changing information on the actual and local biological particle exposure (like pollen and spores) to end-users. Besides making people sneeze and suffer, so-called biological aerosols released from terrestrial and marine ecosystems have an important impact on agriculture and forestry. Because they are released from the natural environment, they are also strongly influenced by climate change. There is a critical need to monitor these particles and generate freely-available and timely information for end-users across a range of key sectors. The Finnish Meteorological Institute coordinates SYLVA, a recently started EU project aimed at developing monitoring technologies and infrastructure across Europe. By including stakeholders from the start, the project will provide information tailored to end-users' needs and allow an improved understanding of environmental and climate-related changes in biological aerosols.