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Description
The municipality of of Ostrava - town district Hrabová is dealing with a number of complaints in its area of responsibility and considers the measurement of air quality to be crucial. It is a district affected by a mix of emmisions from local heating plants, traffic and industry, including the nearby industrial zone. Regular air monitoring will allow the local government to better understand the situation and its context, and communicate it to citizens, which may lead to increased awareness of their co-responsibility for air pollution. Twenty locations influenced by local heating plants will be monitored in the district area in the 2023/2024 heating season. All data will be sent to the MySQL data storage and further presented to the public. The data will be exportable for further processing by experts and for purposes listed in Annex 1A of the Call . Each measured site will have its own card (location, description, photos). The system will store other important sensor information, including validation factors determined at the beginning and during monitoring. The operation and quality of the measurements will be ensured by the project partner VŠB TU Ostrava.
Summary of project results
The project focused on the acquisition, operation, and evaluation of sensor measurement technology. The primary goal was to verify the suitability of sensor technology for measuring air quality in municipalities, particularly with regard to local heating. The main issue is the growing popularity of using sensors for measurement of practically anything, including air quality, without a fundamental responsibility for the accuracy of the measurements. The market is overrun with sensors lacking any connection to laboratory validation. However, municipalities are part of public administration and need air quality measurements for their citizens. The results serve to implement measures such as replacing heating sources, optimizing transportation, or making industrial adjustments. Therefore, it is necessary to approach measurements responsibly.A database was acquired through the duration of the project for further use by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ) and to transfer experience to other projects. The database is native, meaning it contains all events occurring on the sensors, such as outages, extremes, high or low sensitivity, etc. This is to understand the correct selection and ensure responsible operation of the sensors. Additionally, the project found that municipalities are very heterogeneous areas, and air pollution by PMx is uneven. This could be due to local influences or sensor errors, which will need to be further monitored in the data. However, the project provides extensive experience, which can be used to adequately set the quality of measurements. The measurements also proved that sensors cannot replace reference measurements, which are much more robust and under continuous control. Area data from sensors can be used for interpretations, with some reservations.
The sensors were acquired from a supplier through a public tender, with the important condition being their calibration before starting measurements. Calibration was carried out at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ), simultaneously for all sensors and using the reference dust monitoring device ENVEA. The measurement took 40 days and resulted in a validation protocol. Before the heating season, monitoring locations for sensor placement were selected, and the sensors were installed in these locations before the temperature dropped and the heating season officially started. The validated sensors were continuously monitored by operators, and the data was transmitted online to the Smartenvi.eu web server. The data set was delivered to ČHMÚ in the agreed format for further use and is described in the project''s Final Report. The leadership of the involved municipalities used the results for regular citizen updates and plans further use for sustainability. The main benefit for air protection is the created data base, which can help in the future with data autovalidation, sensor autocontrol, and advanced interpretation. It is already clear that the sensors can be used to understand emission/immission events in the municipality and can be a useful tool for air quality protection. This need will grow with the European Union''s tightening of limits from 2030 onwards.
The main outcome of this project 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 an area covering network; the sensors correlate very well, and their measurements are acceptably accurate. However, the issue remains with the accuracy of the measured values compared to reference methods. The project results show that sensor measurements are indicative concerning limits, and it is necessary to continuously monitor the sensors. Additionally, the situation across the area is well described, identifying whether there are any local sources of air pollution in the municipality, such as burning low-quality fuels. The city has a strong interest in using the measurements as an educational tool and for communicating with citizens. An interesting finding, for example, is the extreme air pollution at midnight during fireworks (as part of the Svalbard projects), which led to concentrations in the order of 10,000 micrograms, raising the question of whether such activities should be restricted. This also includes 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 measurements will help them select and monitor these measures accurately. Average PM10 concentrations during the heating season often exceed the annual limit of 40 µg/m³. The worst-hit locations were Viktora Huga, Domovská, and Knihovna, where average PM10 concentrations exceed 70 µg/m³. The maximum concentration was measured in the Bělská location at 445 µg/m³. The sensors correlate with each other in the range of 0.8 to 1.0, indicating that the network is consistent. The yield of sensor measurements exceeds 90% in most cases. The area of Hrabová is very heterogeneous in terms of immission load, making it difficult to determine the causes. There are clearly causes of high dustiness in the municipality; local heating affects the entire area. Significant influences also include the Frýdecká road, the Hrabová industrial zone, and the nearby Liberty Ostrava.
Air quality remains an important issue for our citizens, and therefore, public administration focuses on its protection. The TOP AIR Hrabová project was aimed at the continuous monitoring of suspended particles PM10 and PM2.5. Municipalities generally know they need to address dust pollution, but despite their knowledge of their area, they cannot identify the biggest contributors. Combined with the AIRP''S (TROMSO) project, the measurements are part of the Action Plans and support reasonable activities in the area – from green space maintenance and street cleaning to transportation infrastructure and energy projects. Action Plans are a repository of potential measures that need to be continuously monitored. Given the EU Green Deal deadlines, the year 2030 is very near, and this year will bring significant legislative changes regarding air quality protection. 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 addressed, as problems can arise even in areas that currently seem fine. There are significant differences among the sensors. Although the correlation within the network is excellent, the alignment with the reference method is not straightforward. The degree of consistency varies from minimal to significant, and this difference can be due to the location or the sensor itself. During the project''s implementation, validation checks and subsequent changes to the validation factor were performed, but there were no significant changes in the measured PMx concentrations. The sensors show a similar trend to the reference measurements but are variably "sensitive" and often have significant deviations, with outlier points that should ideally be removed from the results. The presented database is untouched to meet the project''s goal of understanding the proper functioning of the sensors and defining how to use them.