Page 8 - Survival Plan: Climate Emergency

IN ASSOCIATION WITH
The University of Sheffield
University vans packed with sensors are changing our understanding of pollution
HOW TO SEE THE UNSEEN PICTURE: DEAN ATKINS
By David Walsh
Business Editor david.walsh@jpimedia.co.uk
If polluted air was green there would be outrage - and action.
That’s what happened in the 1950s, when ‘pea souper’
smogs killed thousands and led to the Clean Air Act.
We face similar problems today, only the blight is invisible: carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and particles so small they pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream.
Measuring them requires hi-tech, super-sensitive instruments, such as those on MOBIUS, a ‘mobile urban sensing’ van run by The University of Sheffield’s Urban Flows Observatory.
It drives around the
city sniffing out filthy air, producing data that can help council traffic managers keep cars moving, highlight pollution near schools, help individuals decide when and whether to travel and encourage everyone to switch to cleaner transport.
Technical manager Steve Jubb, said: “If we can get people to see these unseen things I think we can make a difference to air quality.” But MOBIUS is not alone in the quest to see the unseen, for it has just been joined by MARVEL.
The Observatory’s new van is on a mission to map and measure every building
Steve Jubb, technical manager, and the MOBIUS van. Pix by Dean Atkins.
in Sheffield to help target environmental action on a ‘city scale’.
Packed with multi- spectral cameras, sensors and lasers, it is believed to be a world first, capable of scanning up to 40,000 buildings in a day while gathering information
on building materials, reflectivity and heat loss.
It will help owners - from councils to individuals - identify priority targets
for insulation. Buildings are responsible for approximately 35 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
It can also be used
to drive up re-use by matching demolitions with construction projects.
MARVEL was designed and developed by postdoctoral research
associate Dr Gregory Meyers and overseen by architectural engineering lecturer Dr Danielle Densley Tingley, a director of the Urban Flows Observatory.
She said: “I’ve been working in this space for
10 years. It’s gone from
no one talking about the carbon impacts of buildings, particularly from materials, to, in the last year, the construction sector and universities signing up to
a climate emergency and saying we need rapid action.
“Universities and industry are developing
the technology and skills needed to create change, with this, I want to see policy and legislation to help us get to net carbon zero by 2050. That’s the biggest challenge, but working together I think we can do it.”
Dr Danielle Densley Tingley and Dr Gregory Myers with the new MARVEL scanning vehicle.
Frightening figures from UK’s most monitored air
Rohit Chakraborty, PhD researcher.
PICTURE DORADC.CO.UK
“People should stop using wood burners,” says Rohit Chakraborty, a PhD research- er at the Urban Flows Obser- vatory at the University of Sheffield.
“The UK has great central heating available, but people burn solid fuels in their liv- ing rooms and it’s filling their homes with pollution.”
It’s also a problem for their neighbours who may inhale the harmful particulates, he adds.
A staggering 38 per cent
of UK air pollution is from domestic wood burners and from burning coal.
“If you’re burning solid fuels, then you’re creating particulates. And the World Health Organisation says there is no safe level of par- ticulates.”
Mr Chakraborty’s under- standing of air pollution is backed by data from a network of sensors in Sheffield which make it the UK’s ‘most moni- tored’.
The Urban Flows Obser-
vatory has been installing them and there are 71 fixed sensors throughout 21 of the 28 electoral wards and more than 50 mobile sensors.
In April 2019 their da- ta showed the average level of fine particulate matter pollu- tion in Sheffield was almost double the WHO’s annual guideline of 10 micrograms per cubic meter or air.
Mr Chakraborty said: “With the advent of cheap and portable sensors, we can now measure the invisible pollu-
tion around us more efficient- ly than ever.
“This data can be used to help us change our pollution- causing habits; influence po- litical leaders in introducing new laws and help citizens make choices like walking through the park on their commute to avoid polluted roads.”
The Observatory is moni- toring pollution at Hunters Bar Infant school which is installing a barrier of plants around the playground.