RI-URBANS at a glance
Improving air quality with research
Our goal is to develop an air quality monitoring system that complements those that are currently available. Identifying and measuring the changes in air pollutants will allow European health administrations and agencies to effectively mitigate the impact of poor air quality on human health.
Our specific concerns include two hazards that have increasingly contributed to poor air quality in recent years – nanoparticles and particulate matter fractions in the air.
Why RI-URBANS?
Atmospheric pollution is the fourth cause of premature mortality in 2019, according to the recent evaluation of the Global Burden of Disease 2020. The global costs associated with air pollution by particulate matter were estimated at 4.5% Gross Domestic Product by the World Bank 2016. In Europe, the European Environmental Agency recently reported almost 0.4 million premature deaths in EU during 2018. Due to the success of European Air Quality policy this number has reduced dramatically since 1990, when as many as 1.0 million premature deaths were estimated to have been caused by poor air quality.
The significant efforts in Europe to abate air pollution have remarkably improved urban air quality, to the extent that, in the last decades, ambient levels of several pollutants decreased markedly (by more than 80% in the case of SO2). For other pollutants such as NO2 and particulate matter, the decrease reached 30-50%, especially from 2000 to 2010, but much less since then, and for O3, NH3, and Benzo[a]Pyrene, the decrease was very small or negligible. The last report of the European Environmental Agency shows that in 2018 large proportions of the EU urban population were exposed to NO2, PM10, PM2.5, and O3 levels exceeding the respective current WHO air quality guidelines.
Changes in emissions in the last decades prompted new urban pollution patterns to be considered in new policy developments and health impact studies.
Objectives
The RI-URBANS’ main objective is to demonstrate how service tools from atmospheric research infrastructures can be adapted and enhanced in air quality monitoring networks in an interoperable and sustainable way.
We want to better address the challenges and societal needs related to air quality in European cities (and industrial, harbour, airport, and traffic hotspots).
This project responds to the urgent need to substantially reduce air pollution across the EU and to engage in a strategy to evaluate the health impacts of air pollution on citizens.
RI-URBANS is based on the premise that advanced monitoring and modelling tools developed in research infrastructures, by air quality experts and advanced monitoring networks can be used to supplement current networks of regulated pollutants.
The concept
The overall design of RI-URBANS recognizes that reinforcing cooperation between research infrastructures and monitoring networks is key to improving tools for better air quality assessment and management in European cities.
This cooperation serves to establish sustainable solutions that will enhance capacity to monitor air pollutants, attribute sources, understand and assess impacts on human health and provide more accurate forecasting of air quality and information to citizens. RI-URBANS also recognizes that the project should have a measurable impact on the long-term organization of air quality management in Europe, promoting a higher involvement of citizens, and facilitating trust-building and synergies between different actors.
Overall, RI-URBANS recognizes the following:
- The success of existing initiatives in several European cities for advanced monitoring of air pollutants and for engaging citizens’ participation.
- The research infrastructure’s capacity to offer advanced urban-specific services to users, not currently covered by air quality monitoring networks.
- The key role of these networks in monitoring ambient levels of target air pollutants and their emissions, connecting with local authorities, and providing information to citizens.
The methodology
RI-URBANS is organised into 9 Work Packages (WPs) built within the 4 Strategic Pillars (SPs).
This structure is optimized to meet the overarching RI-URBANS’ objectives and will be completed by establishing four cross-cutting actions related to exploiting past and current initiatives. The methodology includes the implementation of feedback mechanisms to ensure the proposed guidance has been sufficiently tested and is supported by the relevant user and stakeholder groups, ensuring a wide and complete ethical framework. The planned tasks in the Strategic Pillars will run in parallel and are all strongly interlinked. The transversal activities are cross-cutting actions involving multiple WPs, which will be steered by the RI-URBANS coordination.
Service Tools
RI-URBANS provides 12 advanced assessment tools to reply to the demands of new and complex urban air quality scenarios, and to improve the analysis of air quality
Identification of new pollutant sources and tailoring metrics
Evaluation the health effects on citizens
Creation of new models and emission inventories
The pilots
RI-URBANS will implement 5 pilot studies in 9 selected European cities (Athens, Barcelona, Birmingham, Bucharest, Helsinki, Milan-Bologna, Rotterdam-Amsterdam, and Zurich) for testing and demonstrating services. These selected European cities represent different air quality environments.
They combine the ability to perform advanced long-term air quality observations and the commitment of the local and/or regional monitoring networks to benefit from the corresponding pilot actions. The former provides the reference to the new air quality observations-metrics to be evaluated and for which their association with health outcomes will be compared with that obtained for conventional metrics. The latter ensures the sustainability of the pilots beyond this project’s lifetime.
A pilot aims to demonstrate on a real scale the ability of air quality research infrastructures to integrate complementary measurement systems and methods, but also the effectiveness of integrating different components of an urban observing system for air quality studies.
Innovation
In the course of transferring advanced observation and modelling tools from the research infrastructures to air quality monitoring networks and implementing them successfully into the associated operational framework, research is needed and innovation will be created across many parts of the project.
Our key ambitions on innovation:
Developing near real-time source apportionment for non-refractory particulate matter speciation and black carbon
Near real-time data access to nanoparticle size distribution
Source apportionment of nanoparticles
Evaluating the impact of air pollution in health
Mapping nanoparticles concentrations using mobile units
Offline and online measurements of oxidative potential to trace toxicological patterns
Linking highly advanced vertical atmospheric measurements with urban air quality services and modelling tools
Engagement with stakeholders
RI-URBANS counts with a Stakeholder Board, which is integrated by a representative from the nine major air quality monitoring networks involved in the
pilots, and from experts of the European Environment Agency, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, and the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme.
Their major role is to enhance the participation and interaction with the monitoring networks involved in the project and the major agencies related to air quality and health, specifically to comment on the RI-URBANS pilot development, pilot outcomes, data products, and their interoperability.
Management structure
Ensuring an effective implementation of the project
The RI-URBANS management structure and bodies are devised to:
- Coordinate and manage the project activities in administrative, technical, and financial terms.
- Ensure the quality of the project outcomes, implementing internal and external review processes.
- Assess and mitigate the project-related risks and troubleshoot arising problems.
- Ensure communication between the consortium and the European Commission, and between the project partners.
Workpackages
Our take on addressing new air hazards
RI-URBANS is organised into 9 Work Packages (WPs) built within the 4 Strategic Pillars.
Three WPs (WP1-3) will focus on providing a landscape analysis, collecting and compiling data from past initiatives, and developing advanced service tools for improving air quality monitoring, in particular for addressing the nanoparticle impact on human health.
WP4 will demonstrate through several pilot studies the application of innovative tools in different urban environments. WP5-6 will provide a roadmap for upscaling.
WP7 will support the internal and external communication and outreach of RI-URBANS, and WP8 the coordination and management of the project. Finally, a WP 9 will cover all issues related to ethics, according to the requirements of the European Commission.
Workflow
Our take on addressing new air hazards
All RI-URBANS tasks are arranged on different work packages (WP) by the European Union. The WP are sorted by topic, not chronologically, to help us mark our goals on each group of tasks.
D1 (D1.1) Guidelines, datasets of non-regulated pollutants incl. metadata, methods
D2 (D1.2) Pan-European overview: concentrations of non-regulated pollutants
D3 (D1.3) Report on source apportionment studies and recommendations for source apportionment procedures
D4 (D1.4) NRT source apportionment ST for submicron carbonaceous matter (pilots)
D5 (D1.5) NRT source apportionment ST for submicron carbonaceous matter (final)
D6 (D1.6) Observational methodologies for horizontal and vertical profiling for AQ purposes
D7 (D1.7) Processing and experimental digital tools for AQ from 3D remote sensing
D8 (D1.8) Integration for strategical guidance for upscaling and stakeholders’ engagement
D9 (D2.1) Best practices for evaluation of nanoparticles and health for application in pilots
D10 (D2.2) Evaluation of new AQ metrics and health
D11 (D2.3) Harmonization of the oxidative potential of PM monitoring for application in pilots
D12 (D2.4) Added value of oxidative potential to assess the health
D13 (D2.5) Description of methodology for mobile monitoring and citizen involvement
D14 (D2.6) Added value of mobile and citizens’ observations for urban mapping and health
D15 (D2.7) Best practices for upscaling AQ-health observations
D16 (D3.1) Framework to crosscheck methodologies to assess urban emissions
D17 (D3.2) Methodology to improve European urban emission inventories
D18 (D3.3) High resolution annual sectoral emissions for main pollutants, nanoparticles and nonexhaust contributors
D19 (D3.4) High resolution mapping over European urban areas
D20 (D3.5) Assessment of the modelling system supporting policy implementation
D21 (D3.6) Pan-European report on modelling health indicators, variabilities, sources, uncertainties, and roadmap in support of the pilot
D22 (D4.1) Monthly reports of concentration levels and PMF for each city during the pilot operation
D23 (D4.2) Comparison of NRT source apportionment and manual PMF in the pilot cities
D24 (D4.3) Summary: source apportionment pilots, sustainability and associated benefits
D25 (D4.4) Nanoparticle concentration levels in the pilot studies
D26 (D4.5) Summary: nanoparticle aerosol pilots, sustainab., assoc. benefits for AQMNs and AQ policy
D27 (D4.6) Air pollution variability in the pilot studies
D28 (D4.7) Summary: Mapping procedures, sustainability and applicability for upscaling
D29 (D4.8) Summary: health effects of novel AQ metrics, source contributions: epidemiology
D30 (D4.9) Summary: OP of PM, PM components and PM source contributions
D31 (D4.10) Summary: novel health effect indicator pilots, sustainability, associated benefits
D32 (D4.11) Initial analysis of the hot spot pilot results
D33 (D4.12) Summary of AQ hotspot pilots, sustainability and associated benefits
D34 (D4.13) Synthesis of RI-URBANS pilot actions, sustainability and importance on upscaling
D35 (D5.1) RI-URBANS Data management plan (preliminary)
D36 (D5.2) Open Research Data (preliminary)
D37 (D5.3) Service catalog on ACTRIS and IAGOS services for urban sites
D38 (D5.4) Guidelines and training on AQ tools (source apportionment, mobile measurements, low-cost sensors, citizen science)
D39 (D5.5) STs for model. Urban air novel diagnostics and eval. of regional AQ models over urban areas
D40 (D5.6) Roadmap: Replicating AQ monitoring solutions: Warsaw and applicability to other cities
D41 (D5.7) Roadmap: Upscaling sustainable access to RIURBANS STs (service portfolio, modelling tools, cost/benefit analysis) and solutions
D42 (D5.8) RI-URBANS services to ACTRIS and IAGOS portfolios
D43 (D5.9) RI-URBANS Data management plan (update)
D44 (D5.10) RI-URBANS Data management plan (Final)
D45 (D5.11) Open Research Data (final)
D46 (D6.1) Information packages for local, regional and national AQ administrations
D47 (D6.2) In-situ presentation of the information packages and stakeholder workshop
D48 (D6.3) Roadmap: Citizen engagement for AQ monitoring
D49 (D6.4) European added value of implementing the RIURBANS strategy
D50 (D7.1) Dissem., exploitation and communication plan (initial)
D51 (D7.2) RI-URBANS public & internal website launched
D52 (D7.3) RI-URBANS brochure/flyer/roll up and teaser
D53 (D7.4) RI-URBANS results promotion – video release
D54 (D7.5) RI-URBANS project legacy – final video
D55 (D7.6) RI-URBANS booklet summarising information packages from WPs 5-6
D56 (D7.7) Guidelines for IPR management
D57 (D7.8) Open publications and reports
D58 (D7.9) Final Report on dissem. and communication
D59 (D7.10) Dissem., exploitation and communication plan (updated)
D60 (D7.11) Dissem., exploitation and communication plan (final)
D61 (D8.1) Management structure
M1 (M1.1) Datasets for source apportionment, health studies, modelling and measurement guidelines
M2 (M1.2) Provision of data management and QA/QC tools for centralising, communicating and analyses”
M3 (M1.3) NRT aerosol number size distribution ST for RI-URBANS
M4 (M1.4) Existing single pollutant and new source apportionment at selected EU supersites
M5 (M1.6) Data management for online source apportionment ST
M6 (M1.7) Accuracy check of online SA ST vs. offline SA analysis
M7 (M1.8) Requirements for the implementation of vertical profiling measurements in pilot sites
M8 (M2.1+ M2.3) Multi-year datasets of daily air pollution and health, and of oxidative potential
M9 (M2.2 + M2.4 + M2.6) Demonstration analyses daily air pollution and health, oxidative potential and urban mapping
M10 (M2.5) Guidance document for mobile monitoring in RIURBANS pilots
M11 (M2.7) Best practice document for roadmap upscaling
M12 (M3.1) Validation of regional models’ vertical profiles including diagnostics relevant to urban air
M13 (M3.2) Dataset on PM ultrafine and non-exhaust sectoral emissions distribution over Europe and pilot cities
M14 (M3.3) Top-down and bottom-up estimation of city-scale emission inventories
M15 (M3.4) Improved modelling tools integrating regional and urban scales
M16 (M3.5) Definition of metrics for sub-grid variability
M17 (M4.1) Source apportionment started
M18 (M4.2) Comparison NRT vs manual PMF in each pilot city
M19 (M4.3) Aerosol number size distribution measurements
M20 (M4.4) NRT data provision in operation
M21 (M4.5) Mapping pollutants related to health effects
M22 (M4.6) Start of sampling in health indicator pilot cities
M23 (M4.7) Compilation of pilot datasets ready
M24 (M4.8) Analysis of novel AQ metrics and source contributions
M25 (M4.9) Setting up links with WPs 1-3
M26 (M4.10) Detailed plan of the hotspot pilots
M27 (M4.11) Pilot measurements initiated
M28 (M4.12) Pilot studies finished in 9 pilot cities
M29 (M5.1) Overview of measurement data and pilots, recommendations for data curation
M30 (M5.2) Overview of measurements and products on conditions and pollution above surface
M31 (M5.3) QA/QC measures in the pilot activities defined
M32 (M5.4) First workshop with AQMNs and/or AQUILA network
M33 (M5.5) Toolbox for AQ models over urban areas
M34 (M5.6) Upgrading source apportionment tool
M35 (M5.7) Meeting with stakeholders regarding status and needs
M36 (M5.8) Guidance for co-design with stakeholders
M37 (M6.1) Establish contacts with AQ-competent administrations and private companies to maximise the RIURBANS impacts
M38 (M6.2) Establish contact with EU and international agencies on AQ and AQ-health
M39 (M7.1+M7.2+M7.4+M7.5) Communication tools and procedures set up
M40 (M7.3) Project kick-off meeting
M41 (M7.4) RI-URBANS science meeting
M42 (M7.5) RI-URBANS workshop for stakeholders and science devised in WP6
M43 (M7.6) Project mid-term meeting
M44 (M7.7) Project final meeting for AQ stakeholders and partners
M46 (M8.2) Questionnaire for final impact evaluation of RIURBANS
Gantt Chart
Check out the RI-URBANS project workflow that depicts start-end months for WPs and tasks, and expected delivery months for deliverables and milestones.
