Report on deployment of neighborhood level interventions

This report aims to describe the monitoring campaigns setup at Lazzaretto and Dublin to evaluate the effectiveness of two “physical” interventions, namely photocatalytic coatings and low boundary walls, at the neighbourhood scale. The primary aim of the Lazzaretto field campaign is the assessment of the effectiveness of photocatalytic coatings in reducing the concentrations of NOx pollutants in urban street canyons. Also, this report describes the comprehensive air pollution monitoring campaign implemented in Dublin. The Dublin’s experiment aims to evaluate the effectiveness of LBW (Low Boundary Walls) near the footpath in reducing the exposure of air pollution to the pedestrian. The data obtained so far were carefully checked for their quality, and their usage is twofold. From one hand measured data will be used for the validation of the evaluation models and, on the other hand, they will provide a scientific basis to establish the efficacy of different PCSs in both cities. This report is the output of Task 3.5, which involves the deployment and monitoring of the iSCAPE interventions in order to optimize them at the neighbourhood scale. The report describes the instrumental setup and protocols, along with the description of the two experimental sites. As such, the report fulfils the objective of detailing the functionality and effectiveness of neighbourhood level interventions. Overall, a preliminary reduction in NOx concentrations in the range of 13-20% resulted from using the photocatalytic coatings. However, more definitive conclusions would need other studies and possibly deployments in other conditions removing the effect of confounding factors. Regarding the LBWs a maximum decrease of 23% in NO2 concentrations has been observed in this study. This decrease is associated with the opposite direction of the dominant wind direction. In addition, the results indicate that for PM2.5 the LBWs were not having an effect on the dispersion of the pollutant and the average percentage difference between both the sides of the walls was almost similar for both the case when LBWs were present or not. Therefore, the walls were not effective in altering the concentration of PM2.5 behind the walls. However, for PM10, the results show that the walls modify the dispersion of the pollutant and it can be concluded that LBW can positively affect the PM10 concentrations taking into account the dominant wind direction when placing the LBW in the street canyon. The results from this report are based on the experimental design that has been completed and presented as part of deliverable 3.3. Also, the results from this report will act as a validation data for some of the modeling exercises in WP6. The interventions’ effectiveness results reported in this deliverable will be the base of the socioeconomical study as part of WP5.