Projects — FRANCIS POPE

A Systems Approach to Air Pollution (ASAP)

The ASAP project is an umbrella project that aims to enhance local decision-making abilities to improve urban air quality, reduce the effects of air pollution upon human health, and allow for sustainable development to proceed without further deterioration in air quality. Central to the project’s aims are strengthening research capabilities and technological expertise, with local stakeholders and experts involved in the conception, implementation, and uptake of the programme and its outcomes. ASAP has been conducted in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia), India, and North Macedonia.

Key ASAP papers

1. A Systems Approach to Air Pollution

The West Midlands Air Quality Improvement Programme – WM-Air

The West Midlands Air Quality Improvement Programme – WM-Air is a NERC funded initiative, led by the University of Birmingham, working in collaboration with over 20 cross sector partners, to apply environmental science expertise to support the improvement of air quality, and associated health, environmental and economic benefits, across the West Midlands.

The Pope group is leading on the vehicle emissions work package within WM-Air using two cutting edge techniques to better understand vehicle emissions: remote sensing of individual vehicle emissions, and vehicle telematics data. Remote sensing with the EDAR device allows for the emissions of vehicles to be subset by vehicle class, engine and fuel type and other characteristics. This allows high emitters within the fleet to be pinpointed. Working with The Floow, the Pope group uses vehicle telematics data to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of driving behaviour and vehicle emissions across the West Midlands region.

Key vehicle emissions papers

2. The West Midlands Air Quality Improvement Programme

Telematics data for the whole of the West Midlands region in the UK, showing the average vehicular speed.

Low cost sensors

Low cost sensors –the Pope group has been using low cost sensors and in particular particulate matter sensors to better understand air pollution within indoor and outdoor environments. Successful air quality management and control not only requires measurement of air pollution levels, but it also requires information on the sources and their relative importance. The Pope group has been combining low cost sensors with source apportionment techniques to understand the importance of different sources within indoor and outdoor environments.

Key low cost sensor papers

3. Low cost sensors.

Mills et al. 2023. Constructing a pollen proxy from low-cost Optical Particle Counter (OPC) data processed with Neural Networks and Random Forests. Science of The Total Environment, 871, p.161969.

Bioaerosols (pollen and spores)

A high percentage of the global population has allergic rhinitis, which includes hay fever, due to pollen and fungal spores. Indoors, fungal spores are often found in damp and cold environments and can also have significant health outcomes. Within the UK, the cost-of-living crisis has led to an increase in damp and mould problems within homes.

Current means of detecting pollen and spores can be expensive and time consuming - limiting their use. Better detection and forecasting of pollen and fungal spores would allow for interventions to be developed that would reduce their risk to human health. The "Artificial Intelligence for Pollen and Spore Detection, Forecasting and Human Health (AIPS)" project will use IoT sensors and artificial intelligence to better detect spores and pollen.

Previous work on pollen have investigated their hygroscopicity, and hence cloud forming ability, using physical chemistry approaches including acoustic levitation, electrodynamic balance (EDB) levitation, and environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM).

Key bioaerosol papers

In the spirit of AI, the associated picture is generated by DALL-E Open Ai with the input of the AIPS project title.

Air POllution Citizen Science (APOCS)

The project generates open-sourced techniques from low-cost ground-based sensors and publicly available space datasets to measure and monitor air quality, and provide air pollution narratives in global settings. It provides training for citizen scientists to adapt and expand the techniques to generate dialogue around air pollution and its effects on local community wellbeing. The collaboration between academic and citizen scientists, digital artists, and local communities will generate new tools to effectively engage and empower communities. Workshops are used to engage citizen scientists in the use of

Air pollution monitoring with low-cost sensors
Air quality monitoring with free, open-source data from space-based platforms - Effective online/offline dissemination for awareness raising and advocacy

Article on The Guardian

4. Air POllution Citizen Science

Francis in the geodesic dome workshop on UoB/Fizzpop maker space citizen science project on monitoring air pollution.

Key Outputs

Air pollution and cognitive health

The links between air pollution on physical health are well known. There is a growing evidence base that air pollution can also affect mental and cognitive health both on short and long timescales. In the HIPToX project, the Pope group is working with colleagues at University of Manchester and Imperial College London to investigate how different air pollutant cocktails affect cognition by exposing volunteers to air pollution.