Monthly Archives: July 2018

Air pollution is not just an environmental issue: it can reduce people’s lifespan and cause serious heart and lung disease. We talked with Giuseppe de Carlo (Director of Operations and Projects at the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients Associations – EFA) about health effects of air pollution. EFA is a non-profit network of allergy, asthma and COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients’ organisations, representing 42 national associations in 25 countries and over 400,000 patients. Here is what we learned:

Health effects of air pollution

Research over many decades has highlighted the extent of the effects of outdoor air pollution on the respiratory system. Even short-term increases in air pollution have been associated with respiratory symptoms and temporary decreases in lung function.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), air pollution will be the biggest environmental cause of premature death by 2050. These pollutants increase the death rate, especially in sensitive population groups such as the elderly and children, or those suffering from respiratory diseases. It is estimated that poor air quality in Europe leads to an average loss of 8.6 months’ of life expectancy.

Scientific studies show the link between the development of lung diseases and air pollution. Particulate matter plays a role in the development of allergic asthma, including in children, as well as in triggering exacerbations of asthma. A recently published study states: “Exposure to air pollution early in life might contribute to the development of asthma throughout childhood and adolescence, particularly after age 4 years, when asthma can be more reliably diagnosed. Reductions in levels of air pollution could help to prevent the development of asthma in children.”

You can read more about the links between air pollution and health on the EFA website.

EFA is also collaborating with the European Respiratory Society. Interested in more background reading? Check the resources from ERS on air pollution – a great compilation of articles and materials!

 

Advocating for better air in Europe

“We need better air!

9 out of 10 European citizens breathe polluted air. This is not acceptable – and: it is getting worse and worse. People are more and more moving to cities from the rural areas. The situation in cities regarding air quality is not improving.”

Roberta Savli (Director of Strategy and Policy EFA, May 2018)

EFA is planning a campaign to raise awareness about the need for better indoor and outdoor air quality in the preparations for the elections to the European Parliament in 2019.

The European Respiratory Society issued the following recommendations for policymakers:

• European countries must support the implementation of the WHO recommended air quality guidelines for outdoor and indoor air – through an ambitious revision of limit values for ambient air pollution.
  
• European countries should reinforce their efforts to reduce source pollution from all sectors – industrial, transport and energy.
  
• European countries should make air quality an integral part of their transport, industrial and energy policies and ensure that the correct level of governance – national, regional or local – is equipped to tackle sources of pollution. States also need to improve cooperation on cross-border pollution and ultimately must undertake to implement and enforce air quality legislation.
  

You can read more in the ERS White Book on air quality.

EFA coordinates the Interest Group on Allergy and Asthma in the European Parliament, together with EAACI, the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. This Interest Group meets twice a year. This group plays an important role in advocating for better air in Europe.

EFA project MyAirCoach

EFA collaborated in a project that developed an app, specifically designed for patients with respiratory diseases: MyAirCoach. A prototype for a device that measures indoor air quality has been built: PM 2.5 and PM 10, NO2, pressure, temperature, humidity. The app also shows outdoor air quality. MyAirCoach is using the sensor measurements only as a source of information at the moment. It does not provide recommendations for changing treatment according to external factors. That could be a second step, but the recommendations need to be very accurate for that.

About hackAIR

Giuseppe is a member of hackAIR advisory board and has been engaged in hackAIR from the beginning:

 

“I find the hackAIR platform and app very easy to use and useful. I built a sensor, and it is indeed easy although I am not a very techy guy. In terms of the process and how the system has been designed and developed: the final outcome of hackAIR is very good!”

 

 

hackAIR is intended for citizens in general. EFA is working with people with asthma, allergies and respiratory diseases. These diseases are linked to air pollution. It would be interesting for the EFA network if it would be possible to select specific parameters (including humidity). The patients would then receive information about their individual selection. The impact of environmental factors on their health condition is different for each asthma patient. Giuseppe said: “It would be great if air quality applications like hackAIR could provide options to personalize the information more.”

Giuseppe added: “One of the things that I like the most about hackAIR is the engagement with citizens: raising awareness about the topic. Also is important is the focus on behaving in a different way. These are issues that our patient network is involved in. They relate to our work on empowering patients to self-monitor. Changing behaviour is sometimes quite a challenge. Let’s talk further how hackAIR and EFA can collaborate and support each other’s work!”

Hundreds of people across Europe have set up hackAIR sensors in the past months. Behind each of the sensors is a story – about air pollution and why it is of concern for us. We asked Kyrre Sørensen from Bergen in Norway why he set up his hackAIR sensor:

“Traditionally we had problems in Bergen with air quality. All the roads in the regions go through the inner city here, and the mountains surrounding the city keep fresh air from coming in. In Norwegian, we call this situation giftlokk (“poison-lid”). It gives us an inversion that traps air pollution and smog close to the ground.

Together with the green movements and the local green party, we wanted to do something about the situation. For that, we first needed more data to find out why, when and where the giftlokk is worst, and what we can do to stop it and warn people.

Official air quality data was not enough: the city had only set up five expensive sensors, only two of them downtown where the problem is the biggest. With hackAIR, we are hoping to monitor that better. We can set up more sensors – also mobile ones that we can use to identify where air pollution is worse, and what the source is.

Chasing the source of air pollution in Bergen

As we mostly use electricity for heating, and the winter is not that cold in Bergen, we were curious: Could the problem still be that some heat their houses with firewood or with oil, like some big buildings do?

Could it be cars? Our region is rapidly changing to electric cars: every second new car is now either electric or a plug-in hybrid. 17 % of the cars passing the toll roads are now electric. But we use winter tires, could that be the source of the particles? Bergen is also famous for its rain, and that causes many to use cars instead of umbrellas.

Bergen is also the biggest cruise port in Norway. On some days we have five big cruise ships with up to eleven thousand tourists. Could that also cause the problems?

Using data to find the cause of air pollution

I wanted more data, so I ordered a hackAIR home sensor early, and helped to organise a workshop in Bergen. Before the workshop I ordered the hackAIR mobile sensor. My first one got destroyed in the process of soldering, but I got a new sensor working. I now have 3 sensors working, one centrally in Bergen, one waiting to be placed somewhere, and one mobile one, currently brought with me on summer vacation.

It’s really hard for normal people to solder their own sensors, and it is still too difficult to programme sensors and check data. Why not just one sensor to connect to your phone without anything else to do? What would it take to sell pre-built ones? (Ed: hackAIR is looking for commercial partners that might want to take this on – talk to us!)

My political party might buy a lot of sensors to hand out or lend out to those applying or living in interesting places, for example near the cruise-ships. We will need pre-built ones to make sure they all work as they should, and to be sure they will be ready to set up.

So many ideas, so much work to do…

There are so many ways in which the hackAIR community could use their data more. Like twitter-bots warning when the air is bad, daily reports of the last days or the most beautiful graphs to spread on social media.

More open data with easier access would also mean that we can implement more cool ideas, like you get a message when your local or own sensor drops to bad quality, when its not sending data, etc.

The app should store data on a file on your phone, so other apps, like IFTTT or other automatic trigger-programs can use it. How about a widget or background image changing according to your and others air quality data? You could for example make your phone led-light change according to your sensor data, that would be cool.

How do I make graphs from my data more easily than with cumbersome exports? Can hackAIR do it for me, and have it post to my social media for me?

And how can I share my data in txt to everyone? Instead of the API calls, we could have hackair.eu/sensorid/latestweek.txt or a graph as an image like /sensorid/24hgraph.jpg. At the moment, my friends cannot access data from my sensor and analysing data from a specific geographic region is difficult. I want this to be easier.

I really love hackAIR, and am wondering what will happen with the platform when the year is done. I am no researcher, but I would love to help it develop further. We should just try to place as many sensors as we can, to give researchers and other interested parties useful data to find out more about the particles we breathe in every day. We could also have 500 sensors to send to areas that are affected by events that need monitoring, like a volcanic eruption, big forest fires and similar unforeseen events.

Overall, 10 000 sensors in Europe before 2020 should be the goal!”

Step 1: Get informed

• Check out resources that provide general information about air quality and about mapping air quality through citizen science. You can find a lot on our website. For information tailored for your neighbourhood: have a look at local newspapers, social media channels and local initiatives.
• Find out where your nearest air quality monitoring station is (official or citizen-operated). You can use the hackAIR platform for this purpose.
• Observe how air quality changes over time: We’ve described how to plot a time series of hackAIR sensor data. For Germany, you can find great visualisations of official air quality measurements at smogalarm.org.
• If you want to compare the measurements to the official limit values for air pollution, you’ll need to look at the daily average of your measurements. Generally, daily averages above 50 µg/m³ for PM10 or 25 µg/m³ for PM2.5 can be a cause for concern.

Step 2: Observe in your neighbourhood

Take time for some walks or bike rides. Pay attention to the following details:

• Where are regular traffic jams? What changes during rush hour? Where do you see idling because of traffic lights, road works or around schools?
  
• Are there industry sites or large agricultural activities close to your neighbourhood?
  
• What is the main source of heating that you and your neighbours use?
  
• Which sources of air pollution are important in the area where you live (e.g. transport, industry, agriculture, wood burning)?
  

Step 3: Connect with others who are interested in mapping air quality

• Find initiatives working on air quality in your neighbourhood or in your city (keywords for online search: air quality + name of your city; climate, mobility, smart cities…)
• Local can mean: your street, your larger neighbourhood, your village or your city.
• Take part in (or: organize) a roundtable conversation on air quality in your town.

Step 4: Learn from others

• Find inspiring initiatives in other cities or countries.
  
• You can check out best-practice examples on our blog and explore the Making Sense Toolkit.
  

Step 5: Contribute to mapping air quality in your neighbourhood

• Take sky photos with the hackAIR app.
  
• Build a sensor.
  

We are looking forward to hearing from you – what are you learning? What has surprised you? Get in touch with us, share your stories!