Current and future Air Pollution management – Perspectives on new sensor technologies

A PortASAP training school on Low Cost Air Quality Sensors

Aim

Portable and affordable environmental sensors are becoming popular in Citizen Science activities and are also gaining ground in scientific projects. The recent publication of the WMO report on “Low-cost sensors for the measurement of atmospheric composition: overview of topic and future applications” has signalled the importance of Low Cost Air Quality Sensors (LCAQS) as well as the high interest of the scientific community, city authorities and citizens to their development and application. Such sensor technologies can provide comprehensive information concerning a wide range of pollutants with high spatial and temporal resolution, providing valuable insight concerning the understanding and dynamics of urban air quality as well as of indoor air. Furthermore, low cost spot sensors can also provide information about acute environmental pollution allowing fast identification of sources and threats. On the other hand, their limited accuracy and their lack of performance when compared to reference instruments pose considerable challenges toward their improvement to achieve acceptance in various application fields.

The training school aims at providing fundamental training and added expertise in the area of urban air quality monitoring and modelling, for better and more effective LCAQS design, development, calibration and use. LCAQS technologies and basic functionalities will also be addressed. The training school will emphasize the system approach addressing the technology chain from sensor elements via sensor systems and calibration to their use for environmental services incl. combination with modelling.

Expected results

The main result will be the knowledge shared and the collaboration potential that will be increased between the training school participants. Students will

• receive MSc/PhD level education from University Professors/researchers that have a high experience in urban air quality modelling and monitoring and in LCAQS characteristics and use
• work in the interdisciplinary domain of LCAQS use, approaching them not only as open source hardware but also as IoT nodes for smart city applications

Date  and duration

Week 36, 2-6 Sept. 2019. Duration of 5 days

Location

Aristotle University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thessaloniki, Greece (campus map). The training school will take place at the meeting room of the Faculty of Engineering.

Trainees

The training school is expected to host a total of 20 students from various countries. The average amount of financial support per participant is 700 Euros (travel, accommodation and meals to be covered, according to COST rules). Emphasis will be put on MSc and PhD students as well as on young researchers. The election of the attendees will be made by a committee chaired jointly by the event organiser (Prof Konstantinos Karatzas), the Chair of the Action (Dr Guillaume Erny) and three CORE or MC members. Attendees will be selected based on the relevance of the schools to their work, as well as to ensure gender balance and geographic diversity. The official selection date

Important disclaimer:

Due to COST action roules, it is here stated that this event will take place in the next Grant Period and remain conditional to the final approval of the event in the Grant Proposal, by the COST Association, the Management Committee and the Grant Holder. The new Grant Proposal will not be signed before the 1^st of May and it is necessary to organise this event before this deadline, for this event, it is provisioned the support up to twenty attendees.