Four years in a row AiREAS has measured and communicated openly about the air pollution related to fireworks in Eindhoven during the newyear’s eve celebrations of the city’s citizens. Various sources comment about the influence that this seems to have on our behavior, the air pollution, the apparent reduction of the intensity of fireworks and the related pollution patterns. This would surely be positive and a reassurance of the effort we put in this as a healthy city multidisciplinary cooperative in which many participate to improve the environmental quality within our living space.

This year’s air pollution can be observed through the timelaps created by our partner Scapeler on YouTube and reduced to GIFs for easy and fast observation.

Ultrafinedust: AiREAS in Eindhoven is probably the only place in the world where pollution is measured in near real time at the level of nano-particles. One of the four installed UFP systems was defect (shows hardly any motion in the video). The other three were functioning properly. In the city center UFP peaks were measured of up to 245.000 parts per cm3! In the suburbs the peaks were as high as 100.000 parts per cm3. For reference we use levels below 6000 parts per cm3 as “good”, even though the knowledge of ultrafine particles in relation to human health is still very limited. UFP is suspected to be a major health hazard, much bigger still than the larger pollutants such as PM 2.5 and 10.

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Ultrafinedust peaks measured in Eindhoven during Newyear’s Eve

Finedust: On about 30 locations throughout town we measure finedust (PM1, 2.5 and 10) in near real time (every 10 minutes). The timelaps shows a much slower start of the firework activities than other yeaes and a rapid elimination of the peaks. The weather was foggy with little wind. One would expect a longer delay for the reduction but the elimination of pollution registered was relatively fast compared to other years.

We notice a gradual change in behavior. Just compare the timelaps of this year and two years ago.

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2016 – 2017

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2014 – 2015