Leveraging local knowledge to meet local needs - How the Acoem Neighbourhood Monitor provides a low-cost solution to monitoring local air quality

Sep 2017

The National Clean Air Agreement, signed by Australian state governments in December 2015, outlined emission standards and the need to strengthen air quality monitoring. Is your local council doing all it can to ensure these standards are met?

Your barriers to maintaining state standards on particulate monitoring

The Acoem Neighbourhood Monitor will help you easily and quickly meet, or even surpass, your state’s requirements, while also improving stakeholder engagement in a cost-effective manner.

Australia is a leader in emission standards, but in the past, there has been very little particulate monitoring occurring at a local level due the high prices of equipment, its installation and upkeep. Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and councils have instead relied on state and national data. The lack of local resources has prevented the easy monitoring of air quality and, as a result, the implementation of location-specific policies and interventions.

Your solution: cost-effective equipment to monitor air quality

The Acoem Neighbourhood Monitor. A cost-effective proven air quality monitoring solution already in use by LGAs in USA and Europe.

The Neighbourhood Monitor from Acoem makes this possible. Our research showed us that we needed to create a tool that was low-cost, easy to install and that rapidly provided the public with easily accessible measured data without large monthly bills to LGA’s.

Our monitor only costs $5,950, a tenth the price of traditional equipment, and it can be easily installed in less than 5 minutes by anyone. It uses a small laser light-scattering engine to measure pollution, and, within minutes of deployment, wirelessly uploads of real-time information shown on a map on your council’s website. This information can then be presented simply as ‘good’, ‘moderate’ and ‘poor’, or tabulated data and charts. This flexibility allows for a wide range of uses, from assessing the impact of bush fires and providing safety information to the public, to determining the affect specific potential polluters have on a local area.

Using local government to protect the health of your residents

Poor air quality has been shown to have a significant impact on the health of individuals. It can result in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well as a variety of cancers. It also affects the local environment and the quality of life enjoyed by residents.

It is important for local governments to be able to leverage local data to address local needs. And these needs include the health, lifestyle and environment of your residents. The Acoem Neighbourhood Monitor allows you to optimise your knowledge and instantly share it with your stakeholders.

An internationally recognised solution

Local air quality monitoring was identified in the United States as an area requiring improvement. Immediate location-specific information ensures that communities are kept aware of the air quality data, whether it’s due to a bush fire event, heavy traffic pollution, or tracking the success of emission standards on industrial developments.

The Neighbourhood Monitor has been so successful in the United States that the US Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the monitor to install in their network throughout the country. The Neighbourhood Monitor’s low-cost, easy deployment and absence of expensive monthly bills is what makes this complex project possible.

With increasing urbanisation, a growth in public awareness of air quality, and a rise in government standards on particulates it has never been more important to have the ability to gather local data. Acoem makes this possible for LGAs to achieve, providing you with the power to make decisions that are best for your residents.

For more information contact your local Acoem Australasia office today.

Specifications subject to change without notice.