Air quality in Maastricht
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Short content
What: Measuring particulate matter and NO 2
Where: Maastricht
Sign up: No longer possible
Successful completion of citizen measurement project for nitrogen dioxide
In recent years, enthusiastic residents of Maastricht have measured nitrogen dioxide with Palmes tubes. These measurements have shown that the concentrations of NO2 are not too bad and have improved over the years. Possible causes of this are the construction of the A2 tunnel (which has an effect throughout the city) and the switch from buses to electric driving. The citizen measurement project now continues with the measurement of particulate matter.
Particulate matter measurements
The people who previously participated in the NO 2 measurement network were the first to register for the new project to measure PM 2.5 and PM 1 with particulate matter sensors. After that, other interested residents of the city were also given the opportunity to participate. The municipality is coordinating this project. Astrid Vermeulen is a senior policy officer for Housing and Quality of Life at the Municipality of Maastricht. She explains: “ We especially want to create awareness among our residents. This has now happened for NO 2 and we now want to use the same principle for particulate matter”.
Execution of the measurement project
Over the past two years, the Regional Implementation Service (RUD) South Limburg has developed the Ohnics particulate matter sensor together with two other developers (Roderick Peters from Nijmegen and Marvin Tjon from Delft). This contains the SPS30 sensor from Sensirion. The RUD also took on the assembling of the sensors, because the planned workshop for building the sensors yourself could not take place due to corona. This resulted in special 'homework scenes', with full kitchen tables, boxes in the hallway and a fence full of sensors that were testing.
Planning the measurement project
The first ten sensors were installed by the citizens at the locations of their choice. In total there will be 50 sensors. After a year of measurements, the municipality of Maastricht hopes to be able to organize a meeting. This is where the municipality, environmental service and participating residents come together and the measured values are discussed. The data can be viewed (from April 2021) on the data portal Samenmeten.nl and Luchtmeetnet Maastricht . For more information about the Ohnics and the (temporary) fine dust map of Maastricht, please visit Ohnics.online .
Clean Air Agree
Maastricht signed the Clean Air Agreement (SLA) on 8 July 2020, thereby joining about 80 other provinces and municipalities. Citizen participation plays a major role within the SLA. The citizen monitoring network in Maastricht is a good example of this. The municipality of Maastricht will share their valuable experiences with setting up and maintaining these types of projects with the SLA's participation theme group. In order to hopefully set up even more citizen measurement initiatives throughout the country!
