CONA - Community Observation Networks for Air

In winter 2018 the NIWA Air Quality and Weather Forecasting teams will be joining forces with children and staff at Alexandra School in Otago in a project called "What's In Your Air, Alex?" This will give children and staff a chance to participate in a piece of genuine scientific research which will help us understand the air quality problem in Alexandra in much more detail. This opportunity has arisen because NIWA scientists have chosen Alexandra as the next town to trial the "ODIN" - a low-cost air quality monitor that can be installed in large numbers around the town. These devices feed data to NIWA where it is combined and turned into animated maps of air quality, which can be combined with the weather forecast. ODINs (left) form a network of sensors (centre) collecting data that can be turned into animated maps (right)  At Alexandra School, we're giving children the chance to participate in this project in four ways: Make measurements of air quality and...

Didn't winter come around again fast! Seems like only yesterday we were packing up our gear in Rangiora as summer approached. But now snow is falling across South Island and its time to get the CONA gear out again. And this winter is going to be a big one for us. As usual in summer, the blog might have gone quiet, but there's been a lot happening behind the scenes, which we'll try to cover over several posts. But the headline news is that there will be three CONA studies this winter. Alexandra, in central Otago - will it be the first town to get a 100-ODIN network? Firstly, we will be hitting the little town of Alexandra, Otago in a big way. In a few weeks we will start deploying a new network of ODIN sensors - measuring particles in the outdoor air - across this town which, despite its small size, is regularly one of the most polluted in Australasia (based on regulatory PM10 data). Whereas we deployed a maximum of 18 sensors in Rangiora over the last 3 years, in Alexandra ...