Lecture Title 1: “Recognizing environmental stressors with the help of wearables”
Abstract
Urban areas are hotspots of environmental stressors such as noise, air pollution and heat to which city dwellers, pedestrians and cyclists are
exposed. We demonstrate the potential of mobile sensor (wearable) recordings to identify pollution hotspots and respond with adaptation
measures. Possible adaptation measures include changes in personal mobility behaviour as well as the official introduction of traffic restrictions in
residential areas of cities.This presentation will also discuss practical approaches developed in previous research projects. One of these projects aimed to improve the awareness of urban pollution by commuters in result of receiving feedback of their individual exposure. Another example is closely related to the Superblocks initiative, which aims to implement traffic calming in a heavily polluted residential quarter in Leipzig. These examples suggest that wearables are a useful tool to measure environmental quality exactly at the location of individuals and to effectively communicate the data to the public.
Lecture Title 2 “Data collection and analysis techniques using wearable devices”
Abstract
This lecture will explain approaches of data acquisition using wearable sensor sets. Starting from example measurements made in Landon, UK, we
discuss important issues of the sensors’ sampling rate, ventilation and time constants. The concept of spheres-of-influence is explained. This
concept was originally developed for the specification of the location of a weather station. Here we transfer it to the specification of the sampling
rate of a wearable sensor.
We argue that a standard operation procedure (SOP) is a valuable prerequisite supporting the implementation of wearable sensor measurements.
The measurements taken by wearable sensors can be enhanced by various additional techniques. In this lecture we explicate the assimilation of
sensor records with simulated urban data, resulting in interpolated data for an entire urban region. Walking interviews conducted simultaneously
with the walking measurements can register the perceptions of the walking person and thus provide additional dimensions of personal exposure.
Exposure feedback and visualization are useful techniques to communicate the results.
Lecture Title 3 “Types of Receptor Models and application in air pollution studies”
Abstract
Poor air quality is the result of emissions that are released into a stable atmosphere in which they very poorly disperse so that they can accumulate
in the lower air layers. In the real environment, there are a large number of emission sources. All emitted pollutants mix with each other and we
observe and measure a superposition of pollutants that originate from very different sources.
An important task for air quality management is the identification of local and remote emission sources. Important tools for this purpose are the
receptor models that attempt to disentangle the contributions of different emission sources, especially in complex situations: multiple sources
emitting at different locations, at different distances and in different combinations of pollutants at different times of the day. The lecture introduces the receptor concept and explains three commonly used types of receptor models. The presentation ends with a demonstration of such modelling techniques.
Abstract
Lecture Title 4 “Introduction to wearable technology for air quality monitoring”
This lecture will introduce small smart sensors – we call them wearables – that are worn by people moving around in urban areas. These sensors
continuously record the level of air pollution and in this way assess the individual’s personal exposure. The sensors are combined with GPS,
which registers the geo-position and thus enables spatiotemporal monitoring of air quality.
Many types of wearables are currently being developed and used by the public, such as health trackers (which measure heart rate and other
physiological parameters for physical training purposes) or GPS trackers for hiking. The wearables we are interested in here are applied for
environmental measurements, and this involves air quality as well as noise and climate parameters. In this presentation we give an overview of the
literature, provide technical information on the pollution sensors, discuss issues of their accuracy, and present results of a comparative assessment
of the sensors’ performance.
About the Speaker
Dr. Uwe Schlink is a Senior Researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany, and Professor at University of Leipzig, Institute of Meteorology. He is heading the Research Group on “Urban climate and personal exposure” in the Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology at UFZ. His research areas include urban climate research, adaptation strategies, urban air quality, personal exposure, environmental health effects, and
vulnerability with extreme environmental situations in urban areas, statistical modelling and Bayesian inference. He has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed international journals. He is an adjunct faculty at the Dept. of Civil Engineering of the IITM in Chennai and a fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Durham University, UK.
