CLEAN AIR NAIROBI

In 2012, poor air quality was responsible for 7 million premature deaths, making it the world’s single largest environmental health risk. The burden of air pollution is disproportionally borne by the developing world, and sir quality data is urgently needed to develop effective management plans. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, air quality data often do not exist, although existing studies show that air quality frequently exceeds the World Health Organization air quality standards.

Clean Air Nairobi describes the experimental deployment of six low-cost air quality monitors in Kenya’s capital, a 4 million people city.

Despite technical limitations and issues related to data quality, such network of low-cost sensors can provide indicative measurements of air quality that are valuable to local communities.

Clean Air Nairobi is based on a collaboration between MIT Senseable City Lab, UNEP, the company Alphasense, the University of Cambridge, the NASA-GLOBE citizen science program, the Wajukuu Arts Collective and the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy.