The UB takes part in xAir, the citizen science activity, to measure air quality in Barcelona
xAir project is an action to monitor air pollution due nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in Barcelona, one of the most important pollutants in the city mostly due diesel vehicles. The research group OpenSystems, led by researcher Josep Perelló, from the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS) of the Faculty of Physics -takes part in the project.
xAir project is an action to monitor air pollution due nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in Barcelona, one of the most important pollutants in the city mostly due diesel vehicles. The research group OpenSystems, led by researcher Josep Perelló, from the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS) of the Faculty of Physics -takes part in the project.
This activity consists on placing 835 sensors to improve the accuracy of the seven current fixed stations. Usually, measuring posts for air quality are fixed in places we cannot reach easily, but these sensors are a simple and reliable alternative to know about the quality of air in those places we are interested in.
This is an intergenerational activity in which twenty schools from Barcelona (two per district) take part. Students from primary schools will place diffusion tubes with the help from their parents and teachers.
The project is framed within the environmental health clinic City Station, with its base on a public space in Passatge Trullàs in de district of Sant Martí (Barcelona). Resulting from the exhibition in CCCB “After the End of the World”, this place is commissioned by Perelló and offers a series of infrastructures in which people can contribute to the improvement of the environmental health: from measuring the quality of air, improving plant growth, to recycle in order to reducing pollution.