Mesopartner celebrates World Environment Day
The 5th of June is World Environment Day. This year's World Environment Day will focus on the fight against air pollution, see #beatairpollution.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, as in other regions of the world, there is a lack of measuring stations and reliable measurement data. As part of the consulting work for the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Mesopartner, Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke, has been involved in the last two pilot projects in the field of measuring air pollutants.
Both projects are part of a joint PTB project with the regional quality infrastructure facilities (COPANT, IAAC and SIM) and UN Environment.
The first project is an intercomparison, where the measurement results of measuring stations of large cities in six countries (Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago) are compared. Recommendations for improvement of the measurement reliability are derived from this.
The second project deals with the introduction of low-cost air sensors. This new technology makes it possible to sustainably expand the network of air monitoring stations even when public finances are tight. In this case, PTB and its regional partners investigate under which conditions the new measuring instruments can provide sufficiently accurate and comparable measurement data.
With both projects, PTB and its partners contribute to an improved data situation. This, in turn, informs the policies on air pollution control.
