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Description
The City of Mělník considers air quality measurement to be very important. For this reason, it participates in the TENT air project and continues its efforts in the submitted project. The project addresses air measurements in parts of the city that have been shown to experience air pollution from local heating plants. Specifically, there are two areas of the city, namely Blata/Rousovice and Mlazice/Pšovka, where there are repeated complaints of unsuitable fuels from local heating plants, air pollution and the associated odour. Therefore, a network of sensory measurements and meteocomplete will be installed in these locations as part of the new project to locate the problem and provide information on the state of the environment. These measurements will then be used to recommend measures to improve air quality.
On this basis, the project will have a positive impact on the environment in these locations. Regular air monitoring will also enable the municipality to better influence citizens and increase their ownership of air pollution, as well as improve their readiness to apply for additional funding for the right measures and to implement these corrective measures. In the municipality, 8 sites in the area with local heating installations will be surveyed and verified by reference measurements.
All data will be transferred online to the MYSQL data storage and further displayed as points, areas and graphs. The data can be further exported for further work. Each measured site will have a card (location, description, photos), the system will also store sensor information, especially valid factors determined at the beginning and during monitoring. Operation, data analysis and interpretation will be provided by the project partner VŠB TU Ostrava.
Summary of project results
The project focused on the acquisition, operation, and evaluation of sensor measuring technology to verify its suitability for measuring air quality in municipalities, particularly with respect to local heating.The main problem is the increasing popularity of using sensors to measure practically anything, including air quality, without basic responsibility for measurement quality. The market is literally flooded with sensors lacking laboratory validation. However, municipalities, as part of public administration, need air quality measurements for their citizens. The results of these measurements are used to implement measures such as boiler replacement, traffic optimization, or industrial interventions. Therefore, it is necessary to approach measurement responsibly.A database was prepared in the project for further use by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) and for sharing experiences with other projects. This native database includes all events that occurred on the sensors, such as outages, extremes, high or low sensitivity, etc. This approach is important for understanding the correct selection and ensuring the responsible operation of sensors.Additionally, the project found that municipalities are very heterogeneous areas and air pollution PMx is uneven. This may be due to local influences or sensor errors, which will need to be further monitored in the data. The project provides extensive experience, allowing for appropriate adjustment of measurement quality. The measurements also demonstrated that sensors cannot replace reference measurements, which are much more robust and under constant control. Nevertheless, area data from sensors can be used for interpretations, albeit with certain reservations.
The sensors were obtained from a supplier ENVITECH Bohemia through a public tender, with a crucial requirement being their calibration before commencing measurements. The calibration was conducted at CHMI, where all sensors were calibrated simultaneously together with a reference dust measuring device FIDAS. The measurement period lasted 40 days, resulting in a validation report. Before the heating season, monitoring locations for the sensor placement were selected, and the sensors were gradually installed before temperatures dropped and the heating season officially began. The validated sensors were continuously monitored by the operators, and the data was transmitted online to the Smartenvi.eu web site. The data set was provided to CHMI in the agreed format for further use and is described in the project''s Final Report. The management of the participating municipalities used the results to regularly inform citizens and plan to continue using the data for sustainability purposes. The gain benefit for the field of air protection is the created database, which can assist with future data autovalidation, sensor self-checks, and advanced interpretation. It is already evident that the sensors can be utilized to understand emission/immission events in the municipality and can be a valuable tool for protecting air quality. This need will increase with the European Union''s pressure to tighten limits from 2030 onwards.
The main output is a supervised database that will further serve to set up sensors as auxiliary measuring devices. The measurements also demonstrated that an advantage of the sensors is their deployment in a network; the sensors correlate very well and their measurements are acceptably accurate. The issue remains with the correctness of the measured values compared to reference methods. The project results indicate that sensor measurements are indicative in relation to limits and need to be continuously supervised. At the same time, the situation in the area is well described, such as whether there are any local sources of air pollution in the municipality - e.g., burning of low-quality fuels. The city has a great interest in the measurements as an educational tool and for discussions with citizens. For instance, the extreme air pollution at midnight during a fireworks display (as part of the Svalbard projects), which led to concentrations in the range of 10,000 micrograms, raises the question of whether such activities should be restricted. Other problematic activities include burning grass and leaves or negligence during construction work. The municipal leadership wants to invest in air protection measures in the future, if possible, and continuous monitoring will help them to select and control measures more effectively. The average PM10 concentrations during the heating season are approaching the annual limit of 40 µg/m3, with the worst location being Hasičárna. The sensors correlate with each other in the range of 0.8 - 1.0, indicating that the network is consistent. The measurement yield of sensors in most cases exceeds 90%. The city of Mělník and the applicant "Spolek" are also addressing the transportation issue (the D8 highway corridor), which may also contribute to increased dust levels.
Air quality remains a critical issue for our citizens, and therefore, public administration focuses on its protection. The CleanAir Mělník project was aimed at continuous monitoring of suspended particles PM10 and PM2.5. Municipalities generally know that they need to address dust pollution, but despite their knowledge of the area, they are unable to identify the biggest contributors. In combination with the TENT (TROMSO) project, the measurement is one of the outputs of Action Plans and supports sensible activities in the locality – from caring for greenery and cleaning roads to transport infrastructure and energy. Action Plans are a repository of possible measures that need to be continuously monitored. Given the EU deadlines in the Green Deal policy, the year 2030 is very close, and significant legislative changes related to air protection will occur that year. If municipalities are not prepared, it will be very difficult to achieve changes that positively impact health. Conversely, it is unfortunate that the entire public administration is not systematically affected, as problems can also arise in areas that currently appear to be in good condition. Among the sensors, there are considerable differences; although the correlations within the network are excellent, the alignment with the reference method is not clear-cut. The degree of tightness ranges from minimal to significant, and the difference may be due to the location or the sensor itself. During the project implementation, validation checks and subsequent changes to the validation factor were carried out, yet there were no significant changes in the measured PMx concentrations. Sensors show a similar trend to reference measurements but are variably "sensitive" and often have significant deviations, such as randomly outlying points that should ideally be removed from the results. The presented database is unaltered, due to the project''s goal of correctly understanding sensors and defining how to use them.