Love Lambeth Air provided local people with the materials and support required to collect measurements for nitrogen dioxide across a number of streets in Lambeth, providing a detailed picture of air quality in their local area. Every month for a six month period the diffusion tubes were changed and sent to the lab for analysis with the results being made available on Mapping for Change’s Community Maps.
Background
Lambeth council, in partnership with Mapping for Change, provided diffusion tubes to residents and businesses to measure nitrogen dioxide outside their home or office over the course of six months from November 2016 until April 2017.
Currently there are only three static air quality monitoring stations across Lambeth borough. So this project provided local people with the chance to know what the air quality is like in their neighbourhood.
Every month participants changed the diffusion tube outside their home or office and returned the old tube to Mapping for Change. Mapping for Change sent the tubes to the lab for analysis and the results were made available on their Community Maps website.
At the start of the project there was a workshop to explain how a diffusion tube worked and a demonstration of how to change the tube each month. There was another workshop six months later to discuss the monitoring results (you can read more about this feedback event here). During the feedback event, there was a discussion on ways to help improve air quality and reduce personal exposure and explore steps for further action.
You can read a summary of the main findings or learn more with the final project report.
If you would like to find out more please email the team at: info@mappingforchange.org.uk
Feature image (CC BY 4.0) Essie
Related Projects
Breathe Clean - Citizen Science in Tower Hamlets
Breathe Clean will be providing Tower Hamlets residents with the materials & training needed to monitor nitrogen dioxide levels around the places that matter to them. Participants will measure the air quality at a number of locations over a period of six months, to get a more granular picture of the situation in the borough. The data from the Breathe Clean project will be made available on Mapping for Change’s community maps webpage.
Putting Ourselves on the Map
Mapping for Change in collaboration with the Humanities Education Centre (HEC) and local specialist on learning and ‘place’ Maggie Hewitt, worked with three schools in Tower Hamlets (Columbia School Community Map, Arnhem Wharf School Community Map and John Scurr School Community Map) to pilot a brand new process in which Year 4 pupils develop personalised maps of their local area with their own likes, memories and views on change.