AIR QUALITY MONITORING IN AMAZONAS

Support for former IPCC Scholarship recipient - Dr Igor Oliveira Ribeiro.

Brazilian forestry engineer, Dr Igor Olivieira Ribeiro new applied research, entitled “Alerting people to the risks of fire smoke – EducAIR “ commenced in late 2021 and continued throughout 2022.Involving numerous public schools and over 1,000 schoolchildren in Manaus, capital of Amazonas, the NW state in Brazil that is almost entirely covered by the Amazon Rain Forest; the initiative aims to teach and instruct how to monitor air quality degradation caused by Amazon forest fires.

Excerpt from the progress report of Dr Ribeiro

“Since we started the project, we did not imagine that we would have such great resistance from public high schools with the implementation of a University project. The main reasons for this resistance are:

1. the schools are full-time, with no free rooms for us to carry out our workshops;

2. Teachers don’t want a commitment to help us with the operational control and maintenance of air quality sensors in schools;

3. some schools are not fully secure and sensors can be stolen (the school manager does not want to take that risk);

4. School managers can only take action to suspend classes due to air pollution through a formal and official order from the State Department of Health, or the State Department of Education and, mainly, the Civil Defense of the State of Amazonas.

Thus, the EducAIR Project does not have the authority to do this alone (it is illegal).

So, the two schools where we installed the sensors are for scientific and educational purposes only, where we get local support. Since then, we have sought to carry out educational activities in places and programs that we are invited to, such as the indigenous school, the future scientists programme and the CLIMAS project.

The next step was to forge a partnership with the Civil Defense of the State of Amazonas so that this information could be used as a reference for any action to suspend activities and classes in communities and schools in the region during the critical period of the forest fires. With this formal partnership with the Civil Defense, we will reach all public schools and students in the State of Amazonas, that is, around 1.2 million basic education students (data from the Ministry of Education, 2021).

We are currently building an official technical cooperation term between the University and the Civil Defense, to formalize this partnership, with a duration of 24 months. This partnership with the Civil Defense of the state is essential for achieving our goals. This whole process has been a great learning experience for us. At the same time, we will continue working so that the “EducAir” Project is a legacy and continues as a public tool for education and monitoring of air quality over the next few years.”

Amount awarded in 2022

€ 12,500

Total budget allocated € 37,500