Bradford’s air quality challenges

The Partner meeting in Aarhus provided an opportunity to discuss proposals from Bradford Council for an air quality challenge / solution based around schools and communities.

@klantto and @evdoxia.kouraki have recently organised a LoV-IoT workshop in Gothenburg so already know of suitable devices to be used.

@Dhaval is interested in UoB involvement especially regarding the citizen science aspects and the possibility of running workshops in participating schools.

Background:

The district proposed for the SCORE air quality monitoring is Girlington which suffers many health problems:

• Healthy Life Expectation is the worst in the UK at 48.5 years
• 1 in 5 children suffer respiratory diseases
• 1 in 3 children use ‘inhalers’ to alleviate breathing difficulties

The main factors impacting health in this community are considered to be poor quality housing and high levels of air pollution.

There is a concerted effort from public health organisations and healthy living programmes as part of Bradford Breathing Better to address air quality including Better Start Bradford and Well Bradford and to participate in Clean Air Day 2019

SCORE in collaboration with Well Bradford and the Bradford Royal Infirmary (Hospital) can look to provide the means for schools and residents to measure air quality in their own communities with the potential for this solution to be replicated across Bradford and other North Sea Region cities.

This monitoring infrastructure might provide a useful open data resource that could be used in other solutions for example in traffic congestion.

@sydsimpson I just need to clarify a few things about the LoV-IoT workshop and the sensors we used.

The LoV-IoT Project have organised several of these workshops where Citizens can come and built their own sensors. The workshops has been very popular and has given us a possiblity to raise awareness on air quality issues with attendees. It has been very interesting to us to talk with people about air quality and the concerns that thay might have.

But I need to point out that the quality of the sensors are limited and that the data we get from them can not be used without post-processing. From the data it is possible to see trends. Typically you will see that the trafic is the main source of particles. But it is not possible to get absolute numbers from the sensors. They are not accurate enough, In my opinon is it therefore extremely important to take when using them for Citizen science and be clear in the comunication about the limitations of the sensors. If these actions are taken, the sensors can be a powerful tool used by the citizen and the cities for increasing awareness on air quality issues.

@agot.watne,

Thank you for the clarification

This is exactly as expected, but shouldn’t be a problem as the project is really about citizen engagement and raising awareness.
The actual definitive air quality monitoring will be done by the Council’s pollution team using appropriate (and expensive) monitoring devices.

It is likely that Bradford will be implementing an extensive clean air zone in the next couple of years so there is a lot of work being done for this.
However not much effort is being made to educate the citizens about air quality problems which might mean the clean air zone is seen as an imposition rather than a benefit for the city.
As you know there are also simple lifestyle changes which can help reduce the impact of air pollution that people might make once they are aware of the issues.

@evdoxia.kouraki, @agot.watne, @ sydsimpson

I would like to know the technical specifications of the sensors. What are the technical requirements for the installation and communication of those sensors?

Hi @Bhupesh
You might be able to find out the specifications from the links here:
https://luftdaten.info/en/construction-manual/#feinstaubsensor-konfiguration

I’ve been finding out about other air quality initiatives in Bradford and nearby areas.

This is particularly interesting:
https://www.digitalcreativity.foundation/blog/

There’s also Clean Air Sheffield using the Luftdaten platform.

Here is Luften i Göteborg app that Gothenburg has developed to inform citizens about air quality in central Gothenburg.

You get to know how the air is on a simple scale - low, moderate, high or very high air pollution levels. Data is updated every hour, using measured values ​​from the environmental administration’s measurement stations in central Gothenburg. The app is really simple but maybe could be further developed within SCORE ? Are there any other cities that have developed similar apps so that we can learn from each other? @sydsimpson @dhaval @Juliette

/Eva

Perhaps have a look at the air quality services in SynchroniCity — there’s a few doing similar things, but all on the same technical basis (data models and APIs).

Do not hesitate to share here any outcome of the Clean Air Day 2019 (for those not looking at Twitter) @sydsimpson

@Juliette
I hope we can do a news article for the website @Janne

But for now here is the main tweet:
https://twitter.com/SCORE_NSR/status/1141691586482507777?s=20

Hello everyone,
When we were in Bergen, we discussed the AirHack that we were proposing. I asked if there would be any interest in seeing the proposal, for you to please make comments on what we were proposing and obviously you attending the event if appropriate.

SCORE Bradford Council Proposal Air Quality Data Innovation Pathway 14 08 19.pdf (871.5 KB)

So sorry for the delay but here is the proposal, please ignore the dates as they were just indicative and any dates will be well into the new year.

We had some queries about the proposal with the ODI which can be seen here (their responses are in Bold).

• It would be great to add some sort of a challenge to ask the attendees if they could quantify the potential savings from making Air Sensor Data available. Whist this is not a primary reason for the meeting it is a consideration for the SCORE project. I guess its “why would they want the data and who benefits”. Happy to discuss with you – of course this is no problem.
• Prepare & Co-design the innovation pathway – what does this really mean J? This is what we’re doing now
• We don’t want to get to technical in the airhack but it would be good to at least start the discussion around data standards so that we all know that we are comparing apples with apples or apples with pears. At least then we could hopefully move the discussion on with the ODI, Bradford University, Digipolis (SCORE partner), other SCORE partners and anyone from the airhack that is interested. OK.
• We are having a SCORE partner meeting in Bergen in a couple of weeks and we would like to present the proposal to our partners to see if they have any comments. Is this ok with you? Happy to remove the financials. Brilliant.
• Part of the airhack for us is the aspiration to try and coordinate what we are all doing, not to control anyone at all but to get as much of a coordinated approach as possible, so it would be good to frame the airhack from that perspective as well. Absolutely.
• I guess once we have agreed the proposal we need to get together and agree the detail of the proposal (its in the proposal) I guess we just need to agree who is attending and when great this is the co-design process to
• Hosting in Bradford would be great, we would hopefully be able to get space either at Bradford University or at Margaret McMillan which is a Bradford Council building which has excellent ICT infrastructure if it is available but I guess we could book the event around the availability. I’m still keen for this not to be seen as a Bradford Council led event, not because we don’t want to be blamed for anything but because it might allow more open discussion/involvement. They could work – how about Assembly as an option?
• What do you think to including “climate change” in the pitch, however the focus still has to be Air Quality? Yes that would be great.
• We need to delay the event until early next year (possibly early February), this is partly down to the time that it is taking to install the air quality sensors and the availability of schools which we are still working on. Ok no problem, can we get it fixed and then we can do the work to make it a success before.
• Is there an opportunity to make this a “live” event? We might then get more involvement form our SCORE partners. Depends on the kit available at the venues, we have all the kit here at ODI Leeds. Might need some extra budget.

@agot.watne @klantto

Hi! Thanks. I think it sounds smashing but im going to have to have Ågot to look at it since it really is her cup of tea. Im trying to get the smart parks thingy up on board. Will report back later.

Thank you @evdoxia.kouraki

@klantto

Morning @agot.watne any feedback on the AirHack that we were proposing would be really appreciated

Hi, sorry for late replay. We submitted an application last week and now Im finally back in the real world:)

The AirHack you plan is really interesting!

Will you work with low cost sensors or with data from the regulator air quality monitoring? Or both? In my opinion, which data sources that will be used will be important for how you can formualte the challenge. I Think it is most interesting to combine the sources and maybe ask the question how these data source can complement each other in a good way.

I think that the greatest potential the low cost sensors have currently is to be used to high-light trends, identify the main source, and use this to raise awareness. For example, you can target the traffic or small scale wood burning. Or communities can try to find out which is the major source of air pollution in their area. So much can be done here!

I´m not sure if this was of any help, and let me please know if I can be of more help:)

@agot.watne many thanks for the response we really appreciate it . I hope the application is successful.

The plan is to work with a mixture of data sources just as you are suggesting

We will probably use a mixture of the InLink digital street units, the Luftdaten air quality sensors and the regulator air quality monitoring; which I’m still pushing to get as open data prior to the AirHack.

Please Adrian. Setup a webmeet to talk more about your hack. @agot.watne and i am intresseted on what is going on and how we can partcipate.

@agot.watne @klantto

I’ve just had an interesting chat with Sally Jones, our Pollution Control Officer (Air Quality). Apparently Bradford Council are currently carrying out a trial of 5 fairly low cost sensors for DEFRA (a Central Government Department) running them in parallel with one of our ‘benchmark’ statutory air quality monitoring stations.

At the end of the trial we shall be able to keep and reuse the devices and have access to the comparison data

Hopefully this is something we can share for the proposed Air Hack.
At the moment I don’t have details on the devices just some manufacturer’s names: ‘Earthsense’, ‘Envira’, ‘AirMonitors’, ‘Vaisala’ and ‘Leapcraft’.
I’ve attached a few photos of the devices below.

Earthsense918×1632 488 KB

Envira918×1632 351 KB

Vaisala958×1165 400 KB