One aspect of the WM-Air project is to enhance the region’s capability to understand the levels, sources and distribution of air pollutants such as NO₂ and PM_2.5 – this forms part of the ‘situational awareness’ focus of the project. WM–Air will therefore provide new measurements of the levels of air pollutants across the region (augmenting existing monitoring). This page provides a brief overview of the WM-Air air quality monitoring strategy and our approach to additional observation requests.

What we are committed to

• Providing a network of 25 low cost PM sensors in Birmingham and of 10 in Coventry. It is our initial plan to deploy them alongside the 25 weather stations already located across Birmingham. However, there is potential to negotiate relocating a small number of them elsewhere.
• We provide fortnightly mobile measurements of road NO₂ from the University to QEH, city centre and the ring road.

What else we can offer

• Requests for monitoring support will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with potential impact and future engagement opportunities being key criteria for making a decision. Formal agreements will be sought before a commitment is made.
• We can potentially provide low-cost PM sensors (at cost) to local authorities who have the staff and resources to deploy, calibrate and (ideally) analyse the data. We can accommodate secondment to the University of Birmingham to train staff.  In the long run, additional sensors will potentially be able to be procured by interested parties on this basis.
• We have an air quality monitoring van with NO₂ monitors, which may be deployed for a targeted and short-term (e.g., one week) observations, dependent upon resource implications. 
• We are able to provide advice and staff training with regards to monitoring design, deployment or data interpretation. 
• We can potentially provide NO₂ diffusion tubes measurements (half or one month time resolution), pending assessment of resources.
• In general, it is easier for us to provide people to work with data and harder to meet the capital cost of (proper) monitoring.

What we can’t do

• We are not able to provide any monitoring support of NO₂ observations, except the potential for NO₂ diffusion tubes and very short-term van observations – the resource implications would need to be discussed before we can make a commitment.
• We do not have the manpower or resources to support for long-term observations of air pollutants.

To discuss air quality monitoring, please contact us via our website contacts form or email wmair@contacts.bham.ac.uk. 

If you are interested in obtaining existing Air Quality data, please click here for links to external website offering air quality monitoring data.