Physically-informed probabilistic modelling of air pollution in Kampala using a low cost sensor network

Lead Research Organisation: University of Nottingham
Department Name: Sch of Mathematical Sciences

Abstract

Ambient air pollution is estimated to contribute to over three million premature deaths each year. Particulate matter (PM) pollution in particular is a likely contributor to this toll. Unfortunately there is only limited monitoring of air pollution in Sub-saharan Africa, in part because accurate monitoring equipment is too expensive, making it hard to develop or assess policy at national and local level. Low-cost particulate sensors are available, but their limited accuracy means that the data cannot be used reliably without correction. This project will test the hypothesis that when used in combination with a reference instrument and combined with physical insight, low-costs sensor networks can be used to produce models to accurately predict PM, gain insight, and plan policy. We focus on Kampala, where the project team have built a low-cost sensor network over the previous four years. Kampala is a rapidly growing city with persistent dangerous levels of particulate pollution, which regularly exceeds ten-times the WHO's guideline annual mean limit. Many factors contribute to this, including Kampala's geography, its partly unmetalled road network, and activities such as domestic burning of garbage and cooking on solid fuel stoves.

Aims and Objectives: The project team have previously installed a low-cost sensor network, and provide predictions of pollution across the city using a mathematical model known as a Gaussian process. This type of model only uses correlations between measurements, which means that external inputs, such as wind-direction, are not properly handled. Moreover, this type of model can't be used to anticipate the effect of an intervention (for example modelling the impact of a road closure), as this involves extrapolating outside of the training data. We have previously worked with the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to install fifty sensors across the city, and in this project, we will work with them to develop possible interventions to improve air quality, model their potential impact, and then measure their effectiveness.

The project's mathematical aims are specifically around the development of a new modelling paradigm for models of space and time, and the challenges these pose for training the models on observational data. The purpose is threefold. Firstly, they will allow us to include realistic approximations of physical processes, such as the movement of pollution around a city. Secondly, they will let us work out what is producing the pollution, where and when. Thirdly, they will help the KCCA answer "what if?" questions, e.g. "What if we close Luwum Street to motor traffic?" The models predictions must also report their confidence, so that the KCCA and others know if the results can be trusted.

Applications and benefits: Even small improvements in air quality in Kampala would improve the health of its population. By providing policy makers and civil society with the tools for making predictions, we will enable them to plan and assess policy interventions to improve air quality. We anticipate considerable international impact, first through implementation by city authorities in neighbouring countries. Second, by supporting academic research in the field. And third, by supporting the development of practical interventions such as cleaner fuels and support active travel and other issues around 'double burden'.

In summary, the project will lead to considerable high-impact improvements in quality-of-life associated with improved air quality. The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), the local government and civil authority for Kampala, have the potential take action to achieve improvements in air quality. But they lack the information and evidence to make or motivate policy decisions in this domain. This project will provide the data, packaged and presented in a clear and actionable manner, in a format and context most useful to policy makers.

Planned Impact

Our physically-informed probabilistic model of the air pollution in Kampala will impact the following areas:

Public policy: The local government in Kampala, the KCCA, are our partners for this project and have previously helped us to build the low cost sensor network. Improving air quality is one of their strategic priorities. They plan to take, and have previously taken, action to reduce air pollution in the city, for example, by the use of temporary road closures, or restricting the domestic burning of waste. The model we will build in this project will allow the KCCA to better understand the air pollution challenge, and to understand the sources of pollution. Our model will allow them to assess the likely effect of interventions enabling them to maximize their effectiveness.

Society: Air pollution is a problem across much of the Global South, particularly in rapidly urbanising cities with marginalized and low income communities, such as Kampala, but its management is severely restricted by the lack of affordable systems for systematic monitoring. Historical and ongoing measurements of air quality in Kampala far exceed recommendations by the WHO. Kampala's population of 1.5M people would have substantially improved life expectancies for even a small improvements in air quality. This project will provide policy makers and civil society the tools they need to develop and assess possible policy interventions to improve air quality. Beyond the local improvements to health, we anticipate considerable international impact, first through the implementation of similar low cost networks by city authorities in neighbouring countries. Second, by supporting academic research in air pollution. And third, by supporting the development of practical interventions such as cleaner fuels and active travel (thus targeting the growing issue of 'double burden' in the Global South).

Economy: The OECD estimates the annual welfare costs associated with outdoor air pollution in Sub-Saharan Africa are $40B. Any improvement in air quality in Kampala will positively benefit civil society by reducing the costs of poor health, and improving the fitness and health of the population

Knowledge: One of the key outputs will be an open, robust and simple to use system for monitoring air pollution using a mixture of sensor types that will allow policymakers to use a physics-informed model to answer 'what if?' questions. This will have clear scientific utility, both in the domain of air pollution modelling but also in the wider machine learning community, which is increasingly focusing on the development of methods that move beyond purely data-driven algorithms.

People: This project will build research and technical capacity in data and computer science at Makerere University, strengthening the foundations for improved graduate education. The additional research capacity is synergistic with the support the project will provide for networking, via the Data Science Africa network (a cooperative scientific programme across African countries).

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description We have installed a network of air pollution sensors in Kampala and made the data publicly available. We've developed statistical methodology that allows us to efficiently estimate the source of the pollution, and which enables us to predict air pollution levels in the city.
Exploitation Route The methodology we've developed will be of interest to others using differential equation models to infer unknown source/forcing terms. The data products will be of interest to those interested in air pollution levels in Kampala.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Environment

URL https://www.airqo.net/
 
Description The company AirQo was created in 2015, prior to this award, but this award provided essential funding to allow AirQo to build its network of Air Pollution sensors. The project worked on methodology to process the data and provide a useable product. Policy impacts: Air quality datasets, spatial-temporal models and insights from the project have provided a baseline for and contributed to the development of regulations and policies at city and national levels. Cities and governments are also able to report and track the state of air quality for inclusion in reports e.g., the Uganda National Environment Management Authority started providing the State of Air Quality data, and insights in the National State of Environment report Before the project this was not possible due to a lack of long-term air quality datasets on the air quality across the urban spaces. Further, Air Quality standards at a national level have been developed and are undergoing the stages of approval by the government. At the city level, cities have initiated city-specific air quality action plans, for example, Kampala. African cities like Kampala, Fort Portal, Nairobi, Lagos, and Kisumu are initiating actions to reduce air pollution including improved waste management, tree planting initiatives, and formulating air quality action plans. For example, Jinja City in Uganda, formulated clean air city action plans and made a budget allocation for air quality improvement. AirQo API datasets are integrated in the city websites for Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos/LASEPA (Nigeria) and Kampala (Uganda) allowing citizens to access timely air quality data and inform decisions to reduce exposure and protect lives. Replication to other countries. The artifacts developed in the project provide a base for replication and scaling to other African countries and cities including Kenya (Kisumu and Nairobi), Uganda (Gulu, Kampala, Kira, Jinja and Fort Portal), Nigeria (Lagos), Madagascar, Cameroon (Yaounde and Duola), Ghana (Accra), Senegal, and Burundi (Bujumbura). Policy makers and scientific community engagements. As part of policy engagements, city leaders and researchers from 31 cities and 16 countries convened in Kampala in March 2023 for the launch of CLEAN-Air Africa network and improving their understanding and awareness on the use of data and evidence in air quality management in African cities. The Air quality forecast embedded in the News daily broadcast by NBS Uganda Television leading to increased access to air quality information among the population. In September 2023, AirQo was launched with the Governor of Nairobi City County Kenya for the Nairobi City. AirQo API datasets are integrated in the city websites for Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos/LASEPA (Nigeria) and Kampala (Uganda). In December 2023, AirQo participated and co-organized sessions at UN COP28 and showcased AI-products for climate action. In 2023, The AirQo project was admitted as a non-state partner to the UN coordinated Climate and Clean Air Coalition https://www.ccacoalition.org/partners/airqo and AirQo delivering a statement at the Climate and Clean Air Ministerial 2023 meeting during COP28 https://www.ccacoalition.org/news/voices-climate-and-clean-air-ministerial-2023 We contributed baseline evidence to the Uganda Air Quality Standards (in partnership with the Uganda National Environmental Management Authority) , and to the development of Kampala Capital City Air Quality Action plan. We also contributed to and participated in the Uganda Air Quality Awareness week by providing data and information to raise awareness and provide public education on AQ issues. See the Press statement at https://www.nema.go.ug/sites/default/files/Air%20Quality%20Awareness%20Week%20Statement.pdf
Sector Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Societal

 
Description Development of regulations and policies on air pollution at city and national levels
Geographic Reach Africa 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
Impact Air quality datasets, spatial-temporal models and insights from the project have provided a baseline for and contributed to the development of regulations and policies at city and national levels. Cities and governments are also able to report and track the state of air quality for inclusion in reports e.g., the Uganda National Environment Management Authority started providing the State of Air Quality data, and insights in the National State of Environment report Before the project this was not possible due to a lack of long-term air quality datasets on the air quality across the urban spaces. Further, Air Quality standards at a national level have been developed and are undergoing the stages of approval by the government. At the city level, cities have initiated city-specific air quality action plans, for example, Kampala. African cities like Kampala, Fort Portal, Nairobi, Lagos, and Kisumu are initiating actions to reduce air pollution including improved waste management, tree planting initiatives, and formulating air quality action plans. For example, Jinja City in Uganda, formulated clean air city action plans and made a budget allocation for air quality improvement. AirQo API datasets are integrated in the city websites for Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos/LASEPA (Nigeria) and Kampala (Uganda) allowing citizens to access timely air quality data and inform decisions to reduce exposure and protect lives.
 
Description Kampala Capital City Authority 
Organisation Kampala Capital City Authority
Country Uganda 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Makerere University through the AirQo research team (who are funded by this award) have developed a custom air quality digital platform for KCCA to track the variations of air quality across different city divisions.
Collaborator Contribution AirQo have signed a MoU with the KCCA.
Impact None as yet.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Makerere University AirQo and Google 
Organisation Google
Department Research at Google
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution AirQo won a Google AI Impact Challenge award to support the further scale up of the air quality monitoring in Kampala.
Collaborator Contribution Aside from the direct funding, Google also provide support for cloud credits to host the platform.
Impact NA
Start Year 2020
 
Description Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Makerere University and UNEP 
Organisation United Nations (UN)
Department United Nations Environment Programme
Country Kenya 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Engineer Bainomugisha and the AirQo team led the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Makerere University and the UNEP.
Collaborator Contribution The UNEP will help us understand and
Impact Too soon for any outputs
Start Year 2021
 
Description Memorandum of Understanding between Makerere University and Ministry of Transport and Works 
Organisation Government of Uganda
Country Uganda 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution We provide data on air pollution levels in Kampala.
Collaborator Contribution We hope in time to discuss mitigations that they might implement to reduce air pollution levels.
Impact None so far.
Start Year 2021
 
Title AirQo Mobile App 
Description We have developed the AirQo mobile app that is available from Apple and Google Play stores. The app gives users access to information about pollution levels in Kampala. The first step towards improving air quality is being able to monitor it, quantify prevailing pollution levels while identifying sources, to inform mitigation actions for individuals and policymakers. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact Wider public engagement with air pollution issues. 
URL https://www.airqo.net/
 
Title advectionGP 
Description This is an implementation of the adjoint aided inference approach we have developed for inferring the source term in differential equation models. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact None as yet. So far we have just released code relating to our paper on the methodology (the paper is still under review so not listed as an output here). 
URL https://github.com/SheffieldML/advectionGP
 
Description AirQo Blog 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Via the AirQo blog, we post short articles about the harmful effects of air pollution, the air pollution levels in Kampala and more widely across Uganda, and discussion of solutions to the air pollution problem.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022
URL https://airqo.mak.ac.ug/blog
 
Description Presentations of the work at a variety of venues 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact We have given numerous talks about this project, including at
- AIMLD Africa;
- World Health Summit;
- Kigali Smart city transport workshop;
- Webinar at the Data Science Africa Conference on capacity building by Data.org;
- An ICML workshop;
- At a Swiss academic workshop on Lifting Inference with Kernel Methods
- NeurIPS 2022
- The Alan Turing Institute (2023 and 2024)
- Oberwolfach (2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022,2023,2024
 
Description Training and engagements with local leaders on the access and use of AQ digital platforms for air quality management. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact We have run multiple training and engagement sessions in Kampala for local leaders in government and industry. The aim is to highlight the existence of the AirQo air pollution data, and to show how this may be used by external organisations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://blog.airqo.net/providing-access-to-real-time-air-quality-data-in-africa-6876ac1be1c6