Following up on our last post regarding air pollution in China, I’ve brought it closer to home and given you some articles to read on air pollution in Johannesburg.
Again, please follow the links to read the full or original articles.
_________________________________
Johannesburg Can’t Compromise On Air Pollution – HuffPost
Herman Mashaba, Mayor of Johannesburg
“In South Africa, air pollution is more severe in urban areas, and the city of Johannesburg is no exception.
The majority of our country’s population migrates to the cities from rural areas for economic reasons, attracted by employment opportunities available in the urban centers. This results in the mushrooming of dense, low-income, informal settlements –– which are mostly under-resourced and do not have access to basic amenities, including electricity supply.
The city completed a baseline assessment of its air quality, which identified that the city’s air pollution emanates from domestic fuel burning, vehicle emissions, industries, biomass burning and mine storage facilities.
The city has a network of nine ambient air-quality monitoring stations that include stations in Alexandra, Ivory Park, Diepsloot, Jabavu, Orange Farm, Buccleuch, Davidsonville, Delta Park and Newtown. Seven of the stations are in residential areas, and two are traffic-emission stations. The data from these monitoring stations is compared to the national applicable standards, which are set to protect the public’s health and well-being.
Unfortunately, the city’s poorest communities often bear the brunt of higher levels of poor air quality. Over time, the monitoring stations located in the city’s residential areas have observed record pollution levels higher than the national standard, especially during the cold winter months, when most people still use fossil fuel for heating.
It is the city of Johannesburg’s priority to improve the city’s air quality –– to ensure pro-poor development that addresses inequality and poverty, and provides meaningful redress. Unfortunately, air pollution affects more of our poor communities in the city because of inequality and years of poor infrastructure planning.
To improve the city’s air quality, we have completed a review of our air quality management plan and our air pollution control bylaws. The plan provides the city’s vision and goals for the next five years. A regulatory framework has been developed to manage other sources of air pollution in the city. The two documents are in the final stage of completion, and public consultations will take place prior to their finalization.
In terms of the national Air Quality Act 39 of 2004, the city is responsible for air quality management ― both in terms of regulations and compliance enforcement. In terms of the city’s regulatory function, all the industrial activities that are identified in the act as significant emitters that contribute to poor air quality are licensed, and a total of 37 such facilities exist in the city. These facilities are issued with atmospheric emission licenses, which set out emission limits that are regularly monitored for compliance. Those that are found to be noncompliant are subject to enforcement actions.
The interventions that deal with emissions from domestic fuel burning are complex and require a multifaceted approach. Materials used for domestic fuel are often not by choice, since in many cases people don’t have access to electricity –– and even when it is available, they can’t afford it.
To mitigate against this, the city has prioritized the upgrade of informal settlements, which includes the provision of electricity and other amenities for those registered on the city’s indigent register. The interventions are aimed at improving our communities, while simultaneously improving the quality of air. Additionally, the city has allocated budget for new housing units that are insulated and require less energy for interior heating, and are fitted with solar water heaters.
The city’s approach to dealing with air pollution involves programs that respond to specific pollution sources. Small industries and vehicles are included in our draft bylaws to ensure control, and they set out appropriate operational conditions to ensure the reduction of emissions in these sectors over time. These measures include permits and the creation of smoke-free zones in an attempt to reduce the city’s air pollution. The city is also collaborating with other spheres of government to deal with issues such as dust from mine storage facilities.
Domestic waste burning is a result of illegal waste dumping. Although the city has various programs and interventions to resolve illegal dumping, our most significant intervention is the city-wide A Re Sebetseng monthly cleanup campaign. This monthly campaign is a ward-based cleaning initiative on the last Saturday of every month that encourages residents and communities to reduce their communal carbon footprint.
The project enhances the city’s investment of 50 million rand into Pikitup for a third cleaning shift within the city. This investment is expected to grow to 82 million rand in the medium term. A Re Sebetseng is modeled on the Rwanda Umuganda, which is also a monthly campaign where all residents come together to clean Kigali. Through this campaign, the city of Kigali is now known as the cleanest city in Africa.”
For the complete article, follow the link above.
_____________________
Joburg plans to clear the air
A partnership between Johannesburg and IBM will give the city automated, real-time data on air pollution
22 MARCH 2018 – 11:59 KATE FERREIRA
“As more and more people flock to cities, the threat of environmental pollution and its associated health risks grow — conjuring images of swarms of people in pollution masks.
Compounding this is the growth in “dirty” industry and urban sprawl that brings people in closer contact with factories, mines and manufacturing plants — and the pollution they produce. But technology presents city management with a new tool to measure and even combat this. One such project is playing out on the streets of Johannesburg.
Exposure to air pollution is a risk factor in respiratory complaints, heart disease, stroke and cancer. The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls it the world’s single biggest environmental health risk, and in 2012 attributed around 7m deaths to its effects — with the majority of these in low-and middle-income countries.
The World Bank estimates air pollution kills around 20,000 people annually in SA, and puts the cost to the economy, through factors like health-care costs and lost productivity, at R300m.
SA has standards in place to try to curb this. Gauteng subscribes to a provincial air quality control management plan — drawn from the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act — that prescribes limits to things like particulate matter and the levels of certain compounds and elements, including sulphur dioxide, ozone, lead and carbon monoxide, in the air. But measuring these, and potentially identifying and punishing transgressors, remains a challenge.
Here the power of the Internet of Things and big data gives us the kind of insight that city governments and regulators could previously only dream of.
That’s the crux of a Joburg air quality project being run by the City of Johannesburg and IBM Research. At the IBM Research lab in the Tshimologong precinct in Braamfontein, Tapiwa Chiwewe is using machine learning and analytics to measure several air quality factors, forecast potential poor air quality events, and even use “reverse-forecasting” to pinpoint culprits not sticking to the standards.
The lab was established in 2016, as IBM’s second research facility on the continent. Chiwewe is its manager for advanced and applied artificial intelligence.
“We like to speak about solving Africa’s grand challenges, and one that we identified is air pollution.”
The idea first sparked for Chiwewe on his daily commute into town from Pretoria, when he noticed the haze hanging over the city. From there they reached out to the city authorities, who Chiwewe describes as progressive in their thinking about the issue.
They struck an agreement to draw pollutant monitoring data from six air quality monitoring stations around Johannesburg, as well as historical data from the city dating back to 2004, and further data from the Vaal Triangle and City of Tshwane monitoring stations. The stations also monitor other parameters, such as weather conditions.
Unlike some big data applications, a key element here is not the size (in terabytes, for example) of data being crunched, but the rate, says Chiwewe. Each of the stations is taking multiple readings an hour (some every 10 minutes) and these feed back to IBM and are processed for near real-time insight.
City of Johannesburg spokesman Nthatisi Modingoane says the analytics and forecasting strengthen the city’s air quality management strategies. Among other things it enables an early-warning system and tracks the effectiveness of intervention strategies. “In future it will change the way air-quality information is communicated to the public,” he says.
“Air quality data is meaningful only if it’s easily interpreted and readily available. It is at this level that it changes the lives of people, as forecasting can enable members of communities that are sensitive to poor air quality to [choose] whether to expose themselves or not,” he says.
In exchange for data access, the city gets access to a platform IBM developed that stores and crunches the data. This can produce an air quality index and alerts, and show location and temporal trends in air pollution that can be mapped onto the city, and could potentially be a tool to check actual emissions against the values on an emissions licence. It also feeds into city and developmental planning. This transforms the monitoring from a manual process — using spreadsheets and pivot tables — to one showing real-time data visualisations.
The platform is not public, but it has the potential to feed into public-facing applications, such as websites or apps that could colour-code the air quality status to be less scientific and more user-friendly, or issue alerts for certain areas if they anticipate an “adverse pollution event”.
There are many similar projects running throughout the world – both private and publicly backed – as the Internet of Things becomes mainstream. In SA, Open Data Durban won a grant to install air-and water-quality sensors in a Durban township for monitoring and data journalism purposes. The City of Cape Town also makes a portion of its historical air quality data (2013–2016) publicly available online.”
Please follow the link to the original article to read it in full.
_______________________________
Dust Monitoring Equipment – providing equipment, services and training in dust fallout management to the mining industry.
Single Bucket DustWatch unit
Comments are closed.