Make Air Quality Great Again

The Make Our Planet Great Again (MOPGA) project « Make Air Quality Great Again » (MAQGA) was established as a collaboration between Dr R Subramanian (formerly Carnegie Mellon University) and Dr Matthias Beekmann (LISA/OSU-Efluve), to investigate the use of low-cost air quality sensors in improving our knowledge of hyperlocal air pollution in Paris and to fill in the air quality data gap in cities across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Targeted campaigns in Ile-de-France investigated vertical profiles of air pollution and the spatial variability of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) across Ile-de-France. The goal of filling in the air quality knowledge gap in Sub-Saharan Africa through measurements and modeling was deemed more useful given the extreme lack of air quality resources in many African cities. Both low-cost air quality sensors and reference-grade monitors were deployed in Nairobi, Kenya ; Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire ; Accra, Ghana ; and Zamdela, South Africa. Strong local partnerships with University of Nairobi, University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, Université Felix Houphouet Boigny , University of Pretoria, and North-West University were established to ensure knowledge transfer and capacity building, which are essential to the long-term sustainability of our efforts. An international collaboration led to the formation of the Africa qualité de l’air network (http://www.afriqair.org/). A Kenyan student is doing his PhD on air quality modeling over East Africa. A Cote d’Ivoirian researcher joined the project to study air quality in West Africa. Two American postdoctoral researchers were also trained as part of the project.

These investigations gave us new insights into the magnitude, temporal variability, and sources of air pollution in these emerging megacities, especially the importance of local (traffic, residential fuel burning) and regional (forest fires, dust) sources. These findings will be used to guide future air quality mitigations efforts and ensure sustainable development in a changing climate.