First results of a new Odour Citizen Science Project in Falconara, Italy

on 07 Aprile 2020.

Odor.Net is a real-time monitoring project of olfactory nuisance in the city of Falconara, Italy, launched by ARPA Marche last June, carried out through the use of a simple APP for smartphones and tablets. After 7 months of work, some preliminary results have been presented.

The "Odor.net" project launched by ARPAM (Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione Ambientale delle Marche) in collaboration with the Region and the Municipality of Falconara Marittima, started on the 22nd of June 2019 and nowadays has 252 registered users on the territory (those who have downloaded the APP), which have reported 1.205 odour issues via this app. These results set up this project as one of the interesting citizen science projects related to odours launched in the last months.

Analysis of citizen complaints filed in the integrated system for processing and attending environmental complaints (SITADA) as an indicator of the odor pollution in Costa Rica

on 24 Marzo 2020.

Odor emissions are one of the main problems of environmental pollution in the world. Fact that places them as environmental pollutants and consequently, in a public health issue.

This study presents an analysis of the environmental situation of odors in Costa Rica based on citizen complaints filed through the Integrated System of Environmental Complaints (SITADA), according to the Ministry of Environment and Energy, in order to identify critical areas of odorific pollution.

S. Campos, K. Vetrani, M. Murrell, E. Montero, L. Bermúdez

Programa de Estudios en Calidad Ambiente y Metrología (PROCAME); Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica.

Presented the preliminary results of mapping odours in Sicily

on 04 Febbraio 2020.

The Web-App NOSE is a free application that allows citizens to send their geo-referenced and real-time reports about odour episodes in a confidential and anonymous way to the Regional Environmental Ministry of Sicily. Mr Cordaro and Anna Abita from the Regional Environmental Ministry of Environment of Sicily and Paolo Bonasoni from the Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate (ISAC) of Italy presented last week the preliminary results of a 2-year study on odour mapping funded by the Sicilian Region and co-financed by the ISAC.

This study commenced at the end of August 2019 in the area of Syracuse and In 4 months, 3200 odour observations have been collected from 2000 registered citizens. 2400 times the citizens have reported the smell of hydrocarbons, 271 times they reported sulfurs and 180 times they smelled solvents. Regarding intensity, 1500 reports recorded a maximum level intensity (5) and 1100 observations registered an intensity of 4. Finally, this app offers the possibility to register a health issue. In this sense, 1500 participants reported difficulty breathing, 1300 burning and irritation in the throat and 1100 headache.