28 Feb 2019CERC at the Hounslow Air Quality Summit 26 Feb 2019

CERC were pleased to be invited to attend the first Hounslow Air Quality Summit, an afternoon of informative talks on a wide range of air quality related issues. Attendees heard talks from the GLA about plans to improve air quality in London, about the impact of poor air quality on health and about plans to assess the air quality impacts from the proposed expansion to Heathrow. Steve Smith from CERC was there promoting airTEXT, a free service providing air quality forecasts and alerts across Greater London.

22 Feb 2019ADMS-Urban providing air quality forecasts for Manchester

We are delighted to announce that Manchester (UK) residents can now sign up for free air quality alerts by text message, email and recorded call. The messages are based on a forecast of air quality to enable the public to plan ahead.

CERC and Clean Air Greater Manchester are providing three-day forecasts of NO₂, PM₁₀, PM_2.5 and ozone at street-scale resolution using CERC's ADMS-Urban modelling system. This builds on the detailed modelling work for Greater Manchester's Clean Air Plan, as we reported recently. For more information on ADMS-Urban or forecasting services please contact CERC.

20 Feb 2019CERC at the Bahrain-UK Bilateral Air Quality Forum 6-7 Feb 2019

CERC was very pleased to be invited to participate in the Bahrain-UK Bilateral Air Quality Forum alongside leading academics and experts on air pollution from British universities and research institutes. The 2-day event, held at the University of Bahrain on 6 and 7 February 2019, was organised by the UK Science and Innovation Network and the British Council in partnership with the University of Bahrain and the Bahrain Supreme Council for the Environment, with the objectives of developing an understanding of why air quality is important to Bahrain and of building relationships between UK and Bahrain institutions for future collaborations in air quality policy, research and development. Amy Stidworthy from CERC gave a presentation on how CERC's models can be used to assess baseline air quality and develop mitigation strategies.

18 Jan 2019Mayor launches 'hyperlocal' air mapping in London with smart sensors and Google Street View cars

On 15 January the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, launched the world's most advanced and comprehensive network of air quality monitors. David Carruthers represented CERC at the launch.

Breathe London is a consortium led by the Environmental Defense Fund, including CERC, Air Monitors, University of Cambridge, National Physical Laboratory and Google Earth Outreach, who have equipped two of their iconic Street View cars with air quality sensors. These will take pollution readings approximately every 30 metres at tens of thousands of locations whilst they travel through London's streets, building up a picture of London's air quality over the course of a year and identifying areas of poor air quality that the network of fixed monitors might miss. Meanwhile, 100 state-of-the-art fixed sensor pods will be mounted on lampposts and buildings close to known air quality hotspots and sensitive locations such as schools and nurseries.

The data these monitors collect from across the capital will provide an unprecedented level of detail about London's air quality and deliver new insight into the sources of pollution. CERC's renowned ADMS-Urban model will be used together with the sensor data to generate hyper-local air quality mapping both for nowcasts and forecasts, and for policy studies. The data generated by this new network will be available for the public to view on an interactive online map built by CERC on the Breathe London website. The map will show Londoners the condition of the air they are currently breathing.

17 Jan 2019Disaster Resilient Cities: CERC Workshop and Training in Kuala Lumpur

In December 2018, Dr Jenny Stocker and Mr Steve Smith from CERC presented at the 'Emissions Inventory and Air Quality Modelling Workshop' at the Universiti Kabangsaan Malaysia (UKM) as part of the Newton-Ungku Omar funded project 'Disaster Resilient Cities: Forecasting Local Level Climate Extremes & Physical Hazards for Kuala Lumpur'. This project, now in its third year, looks at forecasting physical hazards from flash floods to landslides, urban heat extremes to local air pollution. At the workshop, Jenny talked about the requirements for detailed air quality modelling in the region, and Steve spoke about emissions inventories. ADMS-Urban modelling results for Kuala Lumpur were presented by Nor Hafizah Baharudin, a UKM PhD student working with Professor Mohd Talib Latif. Project stakeholders attended the workshop, including representatives from the Malaysian Department of the Environment.

On the following day, Steve led an ADMS-Urban Temperature and Humidity training course, attended by 7 delegates from UKM.