Citizen scientists chart encouraging results for air pollution in Cork city
Of The Traffic Contributor Cummins Picture: Congestion Larry A Is Major Pollutant No2
Levels of pollution from traffic are unsurprisingly heaviest around Cork’s city centre and its main entrances, a novel citizen scientist project has found.
The South Link and Commons Road were joined by MacCurtain Street, Lower Road, Leitrim Street, and Carroll’s Quay in presenting the highest levels of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from 700 sensors dotted around the city and suburbs.
In an experiment to see how polluted Cork was in October, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and An Taisce’s Environmental Education Unit, assisted by Cork City Council, enlisted 700 volunteers around the city in the Clean Air Together Cork project to install simple sensors around their homes in order to gauge NO2 levels.
NO2 causes inflammation of the airways in high doses, which can cause irreversible damage to the respiratory system. Traffic congestion is a major contributor of the pollutant and one of the main motivations for the pedestrianisation of city streets across Europe for local authorities.
While the results from the 700 citizen scientists were for October and not the heavier traffic months that tend to come in the heart of winter, they did show encouraging signs for most areas when it comes to pollution.
EPA programme manager Andy Fanning said: “Clean Air Together Cork is a great success story, with over 700 citizen scientists in the city measuring the levels of traffic pollution in their local areas. While the EPA already has fixed monitoring sites in the city, this project has given us data about many areas that we are currently unable to monitor.”
NO2 levels across the city were generally low and none of the results found levels above the EU annual average limit, the EPA said.
It added some higher levels were found near busy roads and in the city centre, which is expected as NO2 comes mainly from traffic.
While the EU legal limit for NO2 was not exceeded, the results suggest that in some cases the new health-based annual average guideline from the World Health Organization may not have been met, the EPA warned.
It said Ireland and Europe should move towards achieving the health-based WHO air quality guidelines over time.
The WHO published updated recommendations for air quality in 2021 after a scientific review but the EU has yet to update its own directive, last revised more than a decade ago. There are sharp differences between the current EU standards and the new WHO recommendations.
NO2 is one of a number of pollutants affecting air quality.
Air pollution is linked to 7m premature deaths globally, 400,000 in the EU, and more than 1,400 in Ireland every year due to factors such as NO2 and particulate matter.
Particulate matter is all solid and liquid particles suspended in air, such as dust, pollen, soot, smoke, and liquid droplets.