I’ve been working on a project in conjunction with the European Environment Agency for the past six months. It was launched on Tuesday during PDC and has already received great feedback from around the Internet.

Eye On Earth combines the power of Microsoft’s latest technology (Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure, Bing Maps, Silverlight) with the availability of a wealth of real-time environmental data and interactive collaboration. The rich data and innovative UI will enable the EEA to offer both water quality through WaterWatch, and air quality through AirWatch, which for the first time is comprised of Ozone (0₃)  and particulate matter (PM₁₀) and Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂). This information will be available to 32 countries, in 25 languages and also gives the EU’s 500 million citizens the ability to offer personal feedback and observations on their own experiences of water and air quality. Not only is the site available in Silverlight (PC, Mac, Firefox, IE etc) but an ASP.NET version was also created for our Linux friends.

Try out Eye on Earth for yourself at eyeonearth.eu!

The official press release can be seen at http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/pressreleases/EuropeanEnvironmentAgencyPR_041109.mspx.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be taking a look at some of the parts that make up the UI on Eye on Earth, including the new Bing Maps Silverlight control, the Silverlight Model-View-ViewModel architecture, and several custom controls that we built specifically for the project.