Southampton City Council is using EarthSense’s air quality service as part of a woodburning campaign with the Environment Centre (tEC). The campaign aims to educate members of the public about the harms of burning wood to encourage them to burn better and cleaner.
The Council developed the campaign following an increase in awareness of the public health implications of exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and after receiving an Air Quality Grant from DEFRA.
Southampton is installing EarthSense technology, to gather localised, real-time measurements of PM2.5. EarthSense’s MappAir® technology, a near real-time, high-resolution air quality model, will provide visualisations of woodburning emissions, using advanced modelling techniques to provide a picture of PM2.5 dispersion.
Southampton Said: ‘The EarthSense platform has been able to plug this gap in our monitoring and give us the opportunity to use local data when engaging with residents to highlight how woodburning is affecting their health, encouraging them to take steps to burn less and burn better.