Monitoring pollution in remote regions of Africa

Customer: The South African Weather Service (SAWS)

Acoem’s Distributor: SI Analytics (Pty) Ltd

Application: Ambient Air Monitoring in Karoo and Waterberg regions of South Africa

The Challenge

Carbon Monoxide and Sulfur Dioxide are among the major pollutants found in cities around the world. Local governments and councils frequently monitor air quality in remote locations with minimal pollutants in order to provide comparable figures.

The South African Weather Service (SAWS) have a responsibility in providing useful and innovative weather, climate and related products and services to their communities. In doing so, SAWS required two background stations to be installed in areas with little to no pollution.

The Solution

Two ambient air monitoring stations were set up by SI Analytics (Pty) Ltd in two remote locations in South Africa: Karoo, the central high-plateau of South Africa and Waterberg, a mountainous province and one of the more regional areas in South Africa.

To obtain reliable measurements, SI Analytics (Pty) Ltd provided SAWS with the following analysers:

Serinus 50 (SO2) Analyser

Serinus 40 (NO, NO2, NOx) Analyser

Serinus 30 (CO) Analyser

Serinus 10 (O3) Analyser

The Outcome

Data obtained from these four gas analysers enabled SAWS to measure very low level pollutant concentrations deployed in these remote and regional environments. This accurate and timely data helped SAWS model various scenarios for research and comparative purposes.