Environmental Network Operators Seek Expertise for Monitoring Quality Systems
A new contract to maintain and certify an air pollution forecasting network underlines how regions are buying long-term services to secure reliable data.
A new contract to maintain and certify an air pollution forecasting network underlines how regions are buying long-term services to secure reliable data.
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A new contract from the Government of Catalonia puts quality assurance at the centre of its air pollution monitoring efforts, seeking a partner to maintain and implement a quality management system for the region’s Air Pollution Monitoring and Forecasting Network. The move highlights how public authorities are shifting from simply installing monitoring stations to buying long-term services that keep instruments reliable and data defensible.
On 5th December 2025, the Generalitat de Catalunya published a contract notice for the maintenance and implementation of a quality management system for the Air Pollution Monitoring and Forecasting Network of Catalonia. The contract covers the network as a whole rather than a single type of station, tying together monitoring and forecasting activities under a common quality framework.
According to the notice, the supplier will be responsible not only for maintaining the quality management system but also for preventive and corrective maintenance of various measurement equipment. This suggests a combined brief: keep the instruments working and ensure the processes around them – from calibration to data handling – follow agreed quality procedures.
The contract is divided into several lots that group different types of measurement equipment. That structure opens the door to specialist bidders focused on particular technologies, while still anchoring the work in an overarching quality system for the network.
The notice does not spell out contract value or duration, but the scope points to a multi-year relationship in which the supplier becomes a key part of how Catalonia produces, checks and uses its air quality and forecasting data.
Catalonia’s tender fits a wider pattern: public bodies across Europe are moving from one-off procurement of monitoring kit towards contracts that bundle maintenance, upgrades and sometimes operations into ongoing services.
In June 2025, the Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale della Campania in Italy launched a service contract for maintenance of the regional air quality monitoring network coupled with the provision of analytical instruments. That combination – long-term network care plus targeted equipment supply – mirrors Catalonia’s decision to anchor instrument work within a broader system.
A similar approach appears in Sardinia, where Agenzia regionale Protezione dell'ambiente regione Sardegna (ARPAS) has tendered, in September 2025, for maintenance of its Air Quality Monitoring Network over the 2026–2028 period. Here again, the emphasis is on securing a dedicated service to keep an existing network functioning, rather than commissioning new infrastructure from scratch.
In Spain’s Extremadura region, the Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Desarrollo Sostenible moved in July 2025 to procure a service for the maintenance, management and control of the air pollution measurement network. That tender explicitly bundles operational management with maintenance and oversight, signalling a preference for comprehensive service provision.
At city level, the Junta de Gobierno del Ayuntamiento de Málaga published, also in December 2025, a notice for maintenance and operation of its air quality measurement and noise control network, with a stated goal of ensuring optimal air quality and reducing risks to health and the environment. There too, operation and upkeep are procured together.
Against that backdrop, Catalonia’s decision to embed preventive and corrective maintenance inside a quality management system looks like a next step: not just keeping the instruments running, but formalising how their performance is governed.
The emphasis on quality systems and forecasting reflects mounting pressure on public authorities to demonstrate compliance with tightening European air quality rules, and to anticipate further changes.
In June 2025, the Dirección General de Sostenibilidad Ambiental y Economía Circular of the Junta de Andalucía issued a tender for services to analyse air quality and develop a roadmap, explicitly to update plans in line with new European air quality regulations. That contract is advisory rather than operational, but it underlines how legal requirements are driving investment in monitoring and planning.
The city-state of Hamburg is following a similar logic. In July 2025, its environment authority launched a procurement for a new central system for air quality measurement, including hardware and software, specifically to ensure compliance with current and future EU air quality directives. The tender notes on-site delivery and installation and points to possible data collection options, showing how compliance requirements now extend deep into system architecture.
At national scale, the Romanian Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests is seeking, via a September 2025 notice, technical assistance to verify the performance of its National Air Quality Monitoring Network, and to support development of an air quality forecasting system and emissions database. This is about checking that the network does what it is supposed to do, and building the analytical tools that sit on top of it.
Catalonia’s focus on a quality management system for both monitoring and forecasting fits squarely within this regulatory landscape, where authorities must show not only that they collect data, but that they manage it within robust, documented processes.
Another trend visible across recent notices is the rise of dedicated contracts for managing, validating and interpreting air quality data, distinct from – though often linked to – physical maintenance of equipment.
In November 2025, the Consejería de Medio Ambiente, Universidades, Investigación y Mar Menor in the Region of Murcia advertised a specialised technical service for management, evaluation, validation and coordination of data from its Air Quality Control and Monitoring Network. The scope focuses on data handling and coordination rather than on the stations themselves.
A prior information notice from the same region in July 2025 flags similar needs. The Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia outlined plans for support in evaluating, managing and coordinating air quality data and protocols, including data validation, pollutant monitoring, incident management and public information. It points to a model in which the day-to-day running of networks can be broken out into discrete technical services.
Elsewhere, regulatory requirements are prompting a clear split between operation and oversight. In August 2025, Belgian company BELGOPROCESS NV went to market for a framework covering maintenance, inspections and validation of continuous emission measurement systems, with the specific requirement that maintenance and inspection be carried out by separate qualified entities. That separation reinforces the idea that independent verification is becoming as important as technical capability.
Against this backdrop, Catalonia’s quality management system contract looks set to reward suppliers that can demonstrate structured approaches to validation, documentation and continuous improvement, alongside the more traditional skills of repairing and calibrating instruments.
The tender also sits within a broader regional push to maintain and upgrade critical monitoring and information networks. In July 2025, the Servicio Meteorológico de Catalunya issued a notice for maintenance of the meteorological radar network and associated infrastructures. Those radars feed into weather forecasts that, in turn, influence air quality modelling.
A month later, in August 2025, the Servei Català de Trànsit sought services for maintenance and operation of the CIVICAT road information centre and repair of traffic regulation facilities. Together with the air and meteorological networks, these systems illustrate how Catalonia is building and maintaining a suite of real-time monitoring and information infrastructures.
Other Spanish buyers are doing the same in their own domains. The Instituto Municipal de Mercados de Barcelona has tendered for maintenance of its people counting network, while the Diputación de Barcelona is procuring comprehensive maintenance of ICT equipment across libraries, natural parks and fire prevention offices. In December 2025, the Junta de Gobierno del Ayuntamiento de Murcia sought services for maintenance and installation of environmental and noise measurement equipment across four lots.
Beyond Spain, environmental agencies are also modernising their underlying systems. In July 2025, the Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij in Belgium advertised a contract for maintenance, adjustments and small innovations to the data acquisition and processing system used for air quality monitoring networks managed by the agency and its partners. And in Latvia, the national environment, geology and meteorology centre has gone to market for the delivery and installation of equipment for the atmospheric air quality network.
Seen together, these procurements show that suppliers eyeing Catalonia’s quality management contract will need capabilities that span instrumentation, IT systems and process assurance, and an ability to operate within increasingly interconnected monitoring landscapes.
As the Catalan tender progresses, several aspects will be worth tracking for both local and international suppliers. The available description does not give financial details or the contract term, so the scale of the opportunity will become clearer only once award information emerges.
For now, the notice confirms that quality management has moved from being a background concern to a central feature of air pollution monitoring contracts. How bidders respond will help shape the next phase of Air-Quality Monitoring-as-a-Service across Europe.
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