Air Quality Assessment Using Affordable Monitoring Units Nairobi

Air Quality Assessment Using Affordable Monitoring Units – Nairobi Demonstration Project

UN Environment Assembly Adopts Resolution to strengthen UNEP’s Air Quality work June 2014 - Governments Adopt UNEA Resolution #7: Strengthening the role of the United Nations Environment Programme in promoting air quality

Air Quality Data currently available GAPS! Source: UNEP Live

Air Quality Monitors: High cost to Affordable Mt. Kenya Reference Air Quality Monitoring Station -High accuracy -High Costs ($150, 000 -$200, 000) -High installation costs -High operation costs St. Scholastica School Affordable Air Quality Monitor -Sufficient accuracy -Affordable (~few $100 -$1000) -Low installation costs -Low operation costs

Assessment through enhanced and lowcost monitoring UNEP National Air Quality Monitoring Programme • Many countries and cities in world regions have limited or no air pollution data • UNEP offers services to support deployment of low-cost monitoring networks and assessment of air quality • Requests received from Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Ro Korea, Cote D’Ivoire, Indonesia, Mongolia, Moldova, Austria • UNEP has developed an affordable air quality monitoring unit q Using electro-chemical sensors for gases and Optical Particle Counter for particulate matter q Blue prints publically available

Nairobi Low-Cost AQ Network , mostly schools in NASA Globe Program

Nairobi PM 2. 5 – scaled individually Distinct local emission features evident across Nairobi

Policy Relevance Continuous indicative monitoring helps inform policy formulations and implementation: § Illustrative measurements from data generated gives a snapshot of pollution events § Source attribution to determine pollution sources and hotspots § SDG Reporting 11. 6. 2: Annual mean levels of particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2. 5) in cities 3. 9. 1: Mortality rate attributed to household and ambient air pollution Continuous data stream established with Kenyan authorities for use in policy and decision making

Policy Relevance – Illustrative measurements Time series PM 2. 5

Policy Relevance – Source Apportionment The Where? – Pollution sources Site 1 – Kibera Site 2 – Viwandani Site 3 – Scholastica Site 4 – UNEP HQ Site 5 – All Saints Site 6 – Alliance

Policy Relevance – Source Attribution The What? - St. Scholastica PM 2. 5 Daily Patterns Diurnal Pattern Monthly Averages Daily Means Traffic related source…

Policy Relevance – Intervention Study Nairobi Placemaking Week Street closures around Jeevanjee Gardens – Nov 2016

Conclusion The successful deployment has shown that: § Low-cost monitoring units are able to generate data for processing, verification and visualization § Data collected is sufficiently accurate to determine the state of air quality, pollution hot spots and pollution sources **Maintaining reliability of the data and increasing accuracy would require access to calibration of the network alongside reference instrumentation at one location § The network can be implemented and maintained locally § The units are deployable in cities with limited infrastructure and difficult operating conditions

Summary q Low cost sensors viable for ‘indicative’ (<25% error) monitoring, mapping and source apportionment of urban pollution. Network intelligence and availability of reference station can increase the accuracy to make the data viable for compliance (<15% error) q EU CEN/TC 264/WG 42 is working towards defining a framework for validation of low cost sensors. Few years away!! q We are still learning about deployment. Still some caveats (T/RH effects) q Proven success in use of low cost sensors elsewhere e. g Open. Sense, SNAQ, Citi. Sense, Village Green, MIT Clairity q Low cost sensors (particulates including Black Carbon, gas phase including Volatile Organic Compounds) continue to advance