̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Rod Jones

Cambridge researchers supporting world's largest air quality monitoring network in London

sc604 — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 16:58:53 +0000

Breathe London will use a range of cutting-edge fixed and mobile sensors to build up a real-time, hyperlocal image of London’s air quality. ̽��ֱ��data these monitors collect from across the capital will provide an unprecedented level of detail about London’s air quality crisis and deliver new insight into the sources of pollution.

Professor Rod Jones from Cambridge's Department of Chemistry and his group are leaders in the development and use of low-cost air quality sensors, which have been used in projects around the world from Heathrow Airport to Beijing and Dhakar. They are supporting the Breathe London project by providing their expertise in sensors and through the analysis and interpretation of results from the sensor networks and two Google Street View cars which have been equipped with air pollution monitoring equipment.

̽��ֱ��data generated by this new network will be available for the public to view on an interactive map on the Breathe London website. ̽��ֱ��map will show Londoners the condition of the air they are currently breathing and allow more accurate pollution forecasting.

̽��ֱ��Breathe London project was devised by City Hall and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a global alliance of 90 cities committed to addressing climate change. ̽��ֱ��project has brought together some of the UK’s top health and scientific experts with leading technology companies and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Baroness Bryony Worthington, Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Breathe London partnership is breaking new ground. We’re developing new scientific approaches using the latest technologies to explore London’s air quality in unprecedented detail.

“This will provide information for both the public and decision makers that can help drive better solutions to a problem that affects every Londoner. ̽��ֱ��support of Mayor Khan, C40 Cities, CIFF and all the partners has been invaluable and together we hope to advance air quality management in London, the UK and cities worldwide."

“By combining fixed and mobile monitors, and by sampling air quality at so many locations, this project paints a far more accurate picture of air pollution across London,” said Jones. “Air pollution is a complex challenge, affected by many different factors, so getting the best possible data is vital. I’m especially looking forward to the possibility of replicating this project in other cities around the world.”

̽��ֱ��project is funded by the Clean Air Fund at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and managed by C40 Cities.

Cambridge researchers are using their expertise in air quality sensors to support the new Breathe London project launched by Mayor Sadiq Khan earlier this week.

By combining fixed and mobile monitors, and by sampling air quality at so many locations, this project paints a far more accurate picture of air pollution across London

Rod Jones

Benjamin Davies

Winding through London

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Cambridge researchers join new initiative on urban air pollution

sc604 — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:37:24 +0000

As part of the initiative, a network of air quality sensors will be deployed across the capital, measuring pollution levels in tens of thousands of locations. Findings from the project will be shared with other cities across the UK and globally, including the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

From July onwards, more than a hundred low-cost air quality sensors will be attached to lampposts and buildings in the worst-affected and most sensitive locations in the capital. These fixed sensors will be deployed alongside mobile sensors carried by Google Street View cars taking readings every 30 metres.

It is hoped that the resulting 'hyperlocal' network of sensors will create the world’s most sophisticated air monitoring system. Improving the monitoring of London air quality in this way should help identify those initiatives that make the biggest contributions to cutting air pollution.

Cambridge's Department of Chemistry is a pioneer in the use of low-cost sensors for the measurement of air quality and our researchers have used them in projects at Heathrow airport, in Beijing, and most recently Dhakar. Their role in this project is providing expertise in low-cost air quality sensors, and the analysis and interpretation of results from the static and mobile sensor networks.

This initiative brings together a range of partners from academia, industry and charity. It will be run by a team of air quality experts led by the charity Environmental Defense Fund Europe, partnering with Air Monitors Ltd, Google Earth Outreach, Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the National Physical Laboratory and the Environmental Defense Fund in the United States. King’s College London will also be undertaking a linked study focused on schools that will form part of the year-long project.

According to the Mayor’s office, London already has one of the best networks of air quality monitors of any city. However, it does not cover enough of the capital. More sensors and more data are needed to say for sure which actions to tackle pollution are working best.

More sensors will also help to explain how air quality changes not just because of the amount of traffic, but also because of other factors such as the weather and the topography of the capital.

Online maps showing data in real time will be created, giving Londoners information on just how dirty the air they breathe really is as they move around the city. New tools like this will help the capital take action to tackle the most dangerous environmental threat to their health.

"This project will provide a step change in data collection and analysis that will enable London to evaluate the impact of both air quality and climate change policies and develop responsive interventions," said Baroness Bryony Worthington, Executive Director for Environmental Defense Fund Europe. "A clear output of the project will be a revolutionary air monitoring model and intervention approach that can be replicated cost-effectively across other UK cities and globally."

"Addressing air pollution in cities is a vital but complex challenge," said Professor Rod Jones from the Department of Chemistry. "Many factors influence air quality and we are looking forward to working alongside our partners on this project as we know that by combining fixed and mobile monitors, and sampling air quality at so many locations, we will get a much more accurate picture of what is going on - I’m particularly excited by the potential of this project to be repeated in other megacities worldwide that have critical air pollution problems."

Originally published on the Department of Chemistry website.

Cambridge researchers are part of a cutting-edge project unveiled by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan last week to better understand Londoners’ exposure to air pollution and improve air quality in the capital.

Addressing air pollution in cities is a vital but complex challenge.

Rod Jones

Bad Air Day? Low-cost pollution detectors to tackle air quality

David Holt

London Sunrise February 18 2018

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Bad air day? Low-cost pollution detectors to tackle air quality

lw355 — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 10:50:58 +0000

Rush hour can be maddening. Roads congested with traffic, public transport overcrowded, pavements heaving with people. But as well as the frustration, there’s a sinister side to the commute to work: every breath you take could be adding to your risk of dying prematurely.

Air pollution is the world’s largest single environmental health risk, causing one in every eight deaths according to figures released last year by the World Health Organization. In the UK, 30,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of poor air quality, and it costs the NHS and wider economy many billions each year.

Traffic is the main culprit; however, industry, domestic heating, power generation and burning are all contributors to pollution. And although the effects of pollution might be noticeable on a particularly smoggy day in a large city, decades of exposure to only slightly higher levels – a level we wouldn’t even notice – can increase the risk of heart and lung diseases, stroke and cancer.

“To work out the factors we should be worried about, and how we can intervene, we need to rethink how we measure what’s going on,” explains atmospheric scientist Professor Rod Jones.

In the UK, the Automatic Urban and Rural Network provides valuable hour-by-hour assessments of air quality. But with only 171 monitoring stations at fixed sites nationwide, large areas of the country remain uncovered. Cost is the main limitation to developing a higher density network.

With this in mind, Jones’ team, together with industrial partners and other universities, has been developing low-cost pollution detectors that are small enough to fit in your pocket, stable enough to be installed as long-term static detectors around a city, and sensitive enough to detect small changes in air quality on a street-by-street basis. Their findings are now informing research projects aimed at improving air quality in major cities across Europe and North America.

̽��ֱ��detectors are based on electrochemical sensors developed by project partner Alphasense for industrial safety, where detection of toxic gases is needed at the parts-per-million level. Monitoring air quality, however, requires parts-per-billion sensitivity. “Rod and I had the confidence to believe that we could push our sensors to lower concentration levels, and yet keep sensor costs low,” says Dr John Saffell, Technical Director at Alphasense.

̽��ֱ��electrochemical devices the team developed can measure a wide range of pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, and they contain laser technology (developed by the ̽��ֱ�� of Hertfordshire) to detect particulates from cars and lorries. ̽��ֱ��addition of a GPS aerial allows air quality data and location to be mapped simultaneously.

A series of proof-of-concept studies followed. Personal devices were strapped to bicycles, carried in cars and on buses, and static devices were attached to lampposts and stationed at roadsides and at critical pollutant sites. Fifty static devices were also deployed around London Heathrow Airport to record 22 months in the life of one of the busiest airports in the world.

“This was the first time technology like this had been tested in real-world situations as a high-density network,” says Jones, whose research at Heathrow was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. “We could see huge variability in the exposure to pollution that people encounter as they move around the urban environment, including ‘hotspots’.

At Heathrow, we could see the airport turning on and off during the day, individual aircraft taxiing and taking off, and the effects of wind direction and the perimeter and M25 motorway road traffic.”

They also discovered that sensor performance can create new opportunities. Jones and colleagues had to develop new smart software methods capable of separating local pollution events from background signals (pollution transported from long range) and then to calibrate sensors across networks. Plus, they needed to move from being able to process the data after it has been collected to doing so in real-time.

̽��ֱ��team has been working with Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants – developers of world-leading air quality modelling software – combining the unprecedented level of data created by the pollution-monitoring studies with model output to enhance the understanding of pollution dispersion.

For instance, sensors can be used to ask whether pollution along bus routes is improved by upgrading the exhaust processing on a bus fleet; whether people living at the top of high-rise buildings experience more or less pollution than people at street level; and to what extent changing a route to work, even from one side of the road to another, can affect an individual’s exposure.

Last year, the first commercial product (AQMesh) was released by UK manufacturer Geotech, which specialises in environmental monitoring equipment. AQMesh uses Alphasense sensors to sample every 10 seconds, and data processing is carried out in real-time using cloud computing software similar to that developed by the Cambridge team.

“When the project started in 2006 there were lone voices calling for a different approach to air quality monitoring,” explains Geotech’s Commercial Manager Amanda Randle. “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge team and Alphasense helped us to understand the sensor’s full potential, and now we have a product that can be placed exactly where it’s needed and provides valuable information.”

And now the approach pioneered in Cambridge is helping to inform two of the largest air quality research studies of their kind.

̽��ֱ��AirSensa project, run by the non-profit organisation Change London, aims to deploy large numbers of air quality sensors across the whole of Greater London. Alphasense is providing the sensors and supporting the engineering; and Cambridge is helping with data interpretation in a project whose ethos is “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

Meanwhile, the methodologies the researchers developed in the pilot study at Heathrow are contributing to CITI-SENSE, an EU-funded €12.7 million project providing wireless networks to eight cities across Europe. CITI-SENSE involves 27 partner institutions from academia, the healthcare sector and industry (including Alphasense and Geotech), as well as the general public. Citizens across Europe will be involved in data collection through personal monitors and in community decision-making to choose monitoring solutions for spaces such as schools and urban public spaces.

“Even though the effects of poor air quality on health are well known, irrefutable evidence of the scale of the air quality issue and the benefits of ameliorating strategies is urgently needed,” adds Jones. “CITI-SENSE provides a test-bed for both rolling out the new technologies that are coming online and for drawing on the ‘power of the Citizen’ to guide how society responds.”

Inset image: upper, pollution sensor (credit Rod Jones); lower, Alphasense

Pollution causes 30,000 people a year in the UK to die early yet most of us are unaware of the degree to which we are exposed to it. Low-cost pollution detectors could provide the answer.

To work out the factors we should be worried about, and how we can intervene, we need to rethink how we measure what’s going on

Rod Jones

Bad Air Day? Low-cost pollution detectors to tackle air quality

O.F.E. on flickr

Rotherhithe tunnel 6

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