Naveed Ahmed

Pakistan is facing the problem of air pollution, which requires developing scientific gadgets to measure air quality in urban areas to have a clear idea about the problem and resolve it accordingly. To accomplish this objective, the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Islamabad has developed a variety of facilities, including an air quality measuring device, and launched a state-of-the-art air quality monitoring station.Dr Muhammad Fahim Khokhar, HOD of the Department of Environment Sciences, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (SCEE-IESE), told WealthPK that Pakistan has many environmental issues, including increasing temperatures, air pollution, dry weather, inadequate rainfall, and smog. He said poor air quality causing smog in urban areas seriously threatens human health and environment.

Dr Fahim said the department is engaged in several activities regarding development of equipment and facilities for monitoring urban air quality in Pakistan. As a result, a scientific lab has been established within the department on a model basis in order to measure the air quality. NUST has also developed a locally-made conventional air quality measuring device in collaboration with local technicians and engineers. Dr Fahim said that a decade of determined effort led to the establishment of an international standard air quality monitoring station at the university, a project based on the institute's robust R&D (research and development) portfolio and indigenous initiatives in the field. Recently, the lab received accreditation from the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In addition, the department has also contracted NASA and different universities to obtain satellite images to develop data on air quality in Pakistan. Dr Fahim said the US Department of State has donated six low-cost sensors to NUST through Duke University. “We installed four sensors at NUST and two at Pakistan EPA to analyse the performance of the latest technology in monitoring air quality and obtain real-time data on 2.5 microns (PM 2.5),” he said. Moreover, NUST Air Quality Monitoring System is the first of its type being developed in Pakistan. Regularly collected data is required to measure the intensity of smog and environmental pollution.

Data availability problems can be tackled by authorities using devices developed by NUST to measure the quality of the urban air. This system solves the problem by measuring the air quality using cost-effective and precise sensors. “We use an internet of things (IoT) based system that communicates with the internet and sends the values from the sensor to our server. This website shows data analytics, graphs, and maps for the data being collected by our kit,” he said. This system provides a sustainable and scalable IoT-based air quality monitoring system to overcome the limitations of conventional costly, and inefficient air quality monitoring methods.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk