CONA - Community Observation Networks for Air

Our keen tinkerer, Gustavo Olivares, started building the first PACMAN back in 2012, I think. We wanted a device that could not just measure indoor particle levels, but would give some clues as to what was causing and controlling them. After 3 years of tests it was not until last year in Rangiora that we finally got around to using PACMAN for the job it was originally intended. Observing rapid changes in particle levels in real homes in a wood-burning setting. The PACMAN technology is low cost and they are each custom-built by amateurs (we are air quality scientists not electronic engineers). Some of them failed, some reported data that was 'contaminated' (by what, we're not yet sure). But some worked beautifully and did exactly what we wanted. Here's an image of a PACMAN in action. This is real data from one of our participant homes, covering one day. You can see three lines which are levels of measured dust, carbon dioxide and outdoor particle levels (PM10) measured b...

Stories like this have been appearing in the press around the world recently: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/80075184/timarus-air-pollution-the-worst-in-oceania-figures-reveal This has been triggered by the release of a global air quality database by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The data they have used (in the case of Timaru) actually comes from Environment Canterbury (ECan) and specifically the continuous monitoring site they operate in the town. It's just the same as the ECan site in the centre of our CONA pilot study town of Rangiora. Press in other countries have basically done the same thing - looked through the database to find the worst or most surprising results in their local area and done some international comparison. I'm sure many readers abroad have come across the NZ figures and gone "Timaru? Never heard of it!" Well they have now. But is this 'notoriety' justified? I've already responded to several enquiries asking me if...

The 2015 CONA first pilot study in Rangiora is over. But CONA is back! The second pilot study, also in Rangiora, is about to get underway. The blog may have been quiet over the last 6 months, but we've ben beavering away, making sense of the mountain of data we collected. We've just released data to our 15 volunteer participants, telling them what we measured in their homes and found out about their woodburner use and indoor air quality. We've just put out a press release: https://www.niwa.co.nz/news/air-quality-scientists-look-for-smoke-signals  and are putting the finishing touches to a technical report. In brief we were very happy with the results of the pilot study. We found that our new technology sensors, the PACMAN for indoors and ODIN for outdoors, were not totally reliable, but when they worked they worked really well. Using an online survey to recruit participants and get them to report their perceptions of air quality was very easy and fairly reliable. Using smal...