Pollution "Radar" and the London Olympics

Sensors to create 3D map of Olympic pollution levels (Mark Prigg, London Evening Standards, Apr. 30, 2012)

Also discussed here: UK develops technology to study traffic impact during London Olympics (Road Traffic Technology, May 1, 2012)

And here: CityScan - The Pollution Radar And here: 3-D Map of Air Pollution in London (London Air, King’s College London)

 The site of each Olympics, it seems, is in or near a large city with high pollution levels.This year is no different with London following Beijing. By no coincidence, national authorities take steps to monitor and improve the air quality not only for the competing athletes but also for the millions of visitors to the event. Today we review progress on the development of a compact optical device, a “pollution radar”, which can produce time sequenced 3D maps of NO2 for the entire city with a resolution of 50m and 5 minutes from three monitoring sites

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 Key Quotes:

 “A team of scientists are to make a 3D pollution map of the capital to show how the influx of Olympic visitors affects air quality”

 “existing technology, which can only give an accurate reading for certain “hotspots” near the sensor, CityScan can show the air quality over every point of the city — including individual roads, playgrounds and other buildings”

 “Between two or three CityScan instruments, we can map out a complete urban area and tell you where the nitrogen dioxide is in that space,”

"CityScan makes the link between emissions and poor air quality downwind, enabling better management of the respiratory health of sensitive individuals."

“Sensors will help detail the amount of nitrogen dioxide produced from traffic emissions and inform the people to avoid such places for health benefits. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are expected to draw 11 million visitors from across the world to the UK's capital for seven weeks, with up to three million extra car journeys anticipated on the busiest days”

 “the Compact Air Quality Spectrometer (CompAQS), a CEOI project to develop a compact imaging spectrometer operating in the ultra violet and visible (UV/VIS) part of the spectrum ….These instruments will operate in the visible wavelength region to enable virtually real-time, 3D maps of atmospheric gases such as nitrogen dioxide to be constructed with five-minute time resolution. This is achieved by the simultaneous analysis of scattered solar UV/Visible radiation from multiple instruments and multi viewing geometries”

Related articles

• Pollution suit against UK government dismissed by court of appeal (guardian.co.uk)
• Citizen-Led Air Quality Sensor Networks (pollutionfreecities.blogspot.com)
• New Technology Will Map Out Pollution In 3D During The London Olympics (psfk.com)
• Air pollution prematurely killing 13,000 people a year in Britain, says study (guardian.co.uk)
• Pollutionwatch: UK experienced top levels of air pollution in March (guardian.co.uk)
• Air pollution is killing Londoners and Boris is ignoring it, warns Jenny Jones (guardian.co.uk)
• CityScan maps out air pollution in 3D glory at the London Olympics (ubergizmo.com)
• Winds of change for pollution sensing (phys.org)