5.578 candidate citizen scientists for CurieuzenAir BXL

The inhabitants of Brussels are enthusiastic about mapping out air quality themselves. When the registration period for CurieuzenAir BXL ended on Sunday 13 June, the counter stood at 5.578. The candidate measuring points nicely cover all 19 municipalities of the Brussels region. From these, 3.000 participants were selected, who will measure the air quality in their street for a month in September. This air quality monitoring network is the largest ever to be deployed in a European city.

CurieuzenAir BXL in a short summary

• Large scale citizen science project about air quality
• Large response: 5.578 subscriptions across the whole of Brussels
• Scientific selection of 3.000 measurement locations
• Measurement of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from 25 September to 23 October 2021

The organizers are very impressed with the number of registrations. “You can sense that the air quality theme is resonating among the inhabitants of Brussels. Families and schools want to know what the situation is in their street, and many companies want to have insight into the air quality in which their employees commute daily.” says Filip Meysman, professor at the University of Antwerp and CurieuzenAir project coordinator. “This overwhelming amount of candidate measurement locations is also a great scientific asset. From all the registrations, we were able to select a dense network of 3.000 measuring locations. These will give us a very detailed picture of the air quality in the Brussels region and will allow us to test how good our computer models really are.”

Among the 5.578 candidate subscriptions are (see map above):

• 102 schools
• 327 companies and organisations
• 5.149 families and private persons

The 5.578 candidate measurement points show an excellent geographical spread across the Brussels capital region. “Citizen science projects often struggle with finding participants in neighborhoods with immigrants and high cultural diversity,” says Meysman. “We are therefore very pleased that we have many candidate measuring points in high-diversity areas like Molenbeek, Anderlecht and Schaerbeek.”

The CurieuzenAir project wants to be a project for and by Brussels residents from all walks of life. "Four out of ten residents in Brussels are socio-economically vulnerable. We believe it is critical to also involve them in this research project as they are proportionally more affected by air pollution," adds Florence Lepoudre of the urban movement BRAL “By working together with medical centers, community centers and anti-poverty associations, we have been able to set up more than 200 measuring points for and with this target group".

During the campaign, social media ads also specifically called for participants in less populated regions of Brussels, like Haren and Neerpede. “This has worked well” says Meysman. “For example, we are very happy that we can install a measuring device at the training ground of premier league football club RSC Anderlecht in Neerpede, because this fills a critical blind spot on our map”. The areas around Brussels Congress and the European Quarter are also difficult to target regions due to the large number of offices and the absence of local residents. “Nevertheless, we received a number of very interesting measuring points in these areas. For example, the resident of Wetstraat 16 has registered as a candidate measuring point. We are very happy to see that the Prime Minister is eager to become a citizen scientist and help us out with mapping the air quality in Brussels.”

A wide network of 3.000 measurement locations

From all registrations, a computer algorithm made a selection of the 3.000 “most optimal” measuring locations in order to obtain a detailed air quality map of Brussels. In doing so, it targeted a good geographical spread over the whole of Brussels, suitable variation in street types and traffic intensity. In order to standardize the measurements, priority was given to measuring points with a window facing the street on the first floor.

The selected participants have already received the good news by e-mail and are invited to confirm their participation. The other candidates are on a waiting list and can be still called if a measurement location drops out. Participants pay themselves a small fee, but the research project wants to be accessible to everyone. Therefore the 'Pay as you like' principle is applied: selected participants pay a contribution according to his or her capacity with a minimum of 5 euros and a guideline contribution of 15 euros (the actual cost of a measurement is 150 Euro).

From September 25, 2021 onwards, all 3.000 participants will place a measurement device at the window of their house or office (a real estate panel with two sampling tubes that measure NO2 in the outside air, an indicator of traffic-related pollution). This measurement set-up remains in place for one month. The data from all measuring points will be used to create a detailed map of NO2 across the Brussels region, thus enabling to improve existing computer models for air quality. In this way, health impacts can be better quantified at the regional level, and so policymakers have more accurate information for the implementation and adaptation of policy measures.

The results of the measurements will be announced in February 2022 via an interactive “dotted map”, which will be released on the websites of media partners De Standaard, Le Soir and BRUZZ. At the same time, participants will receive a personal report with the detailed results of their own measurement.

More information about the research can be found on the website curieuzenair.brussels

CurieuzenAir is an initiative of the University of Antwerp, urban movement BRAL and Université Libre de Bruxelles, in close collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies, Brussels Environment, De Standaard, Le Soir, BRUZZ and DPD.

Press contact :

Florence Lepoudre – BRAL (FR, NL, EN)

florence@bral.brussels

+32 472 780 772