Participatory Patterns in an International Air Quality Monitoring Initiative

TL;DR

This study explores how citizen participation in an international air quality monitoring project using low-cost sensors and web-based engagement influences perceptions and awareness of pollution, highlighting the potential for policy impact.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of combining low-cost sensors with participatory web-based tools to enhance environmental awareness and engagement in air quality monitoring.

Findings

Participation increases awareness of pollution levels.

Direct involvement in measurement activities boosts learning.

Inertia affects perception shifts during campaigns.

Abstract

The issue of sustainability is at the top of the political and societal agenda, being considered of extreme importance and urgency. Human individual action impacts the environment both locally (e.g., local air/water quality, noise disturbance) and globally (e.g., climate change, resource use). Urban environments represent a crucial example, with an increasing realization that the most effective way of producing a change is involving the citizens themselves in monitoring campaigns (a citizen science bottom-up approach). This is possible by developing novel technologies and IT infrastructures enabling large citizen participation. Here, in the wider framework of one of the first such projects, we show results from an international competition where citizens were involved in mobile air pollution monitoring using low cost sensing devices, combined with a web-based game to monitor perceived levels of pollution. Measures of shift in perceptions over the course of the campaign are provided, together with insights into participatory patterns emerging from this study. Interesting effects related to inertia and to direct involvement in measurement activities rather than indirect information exposure are also highlighted, indicating that direct involvement can enhance learning and environmental awareness. In the future, this could result in better adoption of policies towards decreasing pollution.