Crowdsourced tools sniff out the location of nasty odours
Frequent exposure to odours, at home or at work, can cause a range of ailments(opens in new window), including: headaches, lack of concentration, stress, insomnia and respiratory problems. “After noise, odours are the second most complained about environmental pollutant globally. However, most techniques to measure odours don’t adequately account for their impact on citizens. This whole area is under-regulated,” says D-NOSES(opens in new window) (Distributed Network for Odour Sensing, Empowerment and Sustainability) project coordinator Rosa Arias, previously from the Ibercivis Foundation(opens in new window), the project host, now founder and CEO of Science for Change(opens in new window). The EU-supported citizen science D-NOSES project improved a specially designed app to crowdsource real-time geopositioned odour data, augmented by the experiences of those affected. The project tested its methodology in 10 pilots(opens in new window) across eight European countries, alongside Chile and Uganda for wider perspectives. Some of the pilots’ results have already been published, such as those for Italy(opens in new window), Greece(opens in new window) and Chile(opens in new window). In Spain, OdourCollect recently won the prestigious Prismas(opens in new window) (website in Spanish) award for science outreach.
Mapping tools
The project followed University College London’s(opens in new window) Extreme Citizen Science approach(opens in new window), which prioritises bottom-up practices, with an awareness of local needs, to help ensure citizen participation and inclusivity during all research phases. The strategies to engage members of the public were adapted for each pilot, with ethnographic research followed by targeted activities in museums and festivals, alongside appearances in local media. Once engaged, participants took part in sensory walks and odour trainings, alongside data analysis workshops. At the heart of D-NOSES was the OdourCollect app, built on an earlier iteration created by the MYGEOSS(opens in new window) project and designed to enable affected communities to map odour pollution and advocate change. During the 10 pilots, participants suggested improvements to the app’s functionality, such as mapping pleasant smells in addition to unpleasant ones. The flagship Barcelona pilot(opens in new window) focused on the Forum area of the city which had endured the impact of waste and wastewater treatment facilities for over 20 years. Users were trained to recognise different smells including waste, sewage, sludge and biogas, and map them. This data was then linked to industrial operations using the app’s historical analysis. Over 600 observations were reported over a 12-month period, involving 86 participants. In total the project collated over 10 000 odour observations worldwide, from over 1 200 citizens. “Thanks to our engagement model’s gender perspective, 70 % of observations were collected by women,” adds Arias. “Overall our pilots validated our methodology(opens in new window), with the Barcelona and Italian pilots aligning with the results of traditional odour studies. The nose proves to be a highly effective sensor!”
Influencing policy
The D-NOSES event, ‘Revisiting Odour Pollution in Europe’(opens in new window), hosted online by Greek MEP Maria Spyraki, resulted in the inclusion of odour pollution and citizen science in the EU Action Plan ‘Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil’(opens in new window). The team also hope that their green paper(opens in new window) will prompt discussion about a comprehensive European odour policy, and lead to a white paper. Another outcome has been the International Odour Observatory(opens in new window), an interactive online resource where users input and consult data crowdsourced(opens in new window) globally. Advocacy of policy changes was also undertaken locally during the pilots, as well as more generally with an advocacy toolkit(opens in new window), policy briefs(opens in new window) and the strategic roadmap for governance(opens in new window). The team are currently standardising their methodology in Spain, while also working on a municipal model to guide odour regulation. “Our objective is that citizen data is used as evidence by authorities, to prompt action,” concludes Arias. “Crucially, our methodology can be replicated(opens in new window) in other contexts and/or applied to other socio-environmental issues.”
Keywords
D-NOSES, citizen science, odour, pollution, smells, waste, crowdsource, geoposition