Sensing device deployment

Three devices were deployed in April 2023, with two under the main aircraft flight path and one in a control location at Uki (30km south west). Devices operated 12 months before losing functionality in May 2024.

All devices were deployed at Council-owned water treatment facilities, which streamlined approvals and resolved security concerns through restricted public access. These facilities were non-operational because operational wastewater facilities produce airborne particulate matter that can interfere with readings. Deployments were approved by Council’s Water and Wastewater Unit, which supported the project directly by installing the equipment.

Data and insights

About the data

The devices and their retrofitted power and communications systems operated correctly and continuously throughout the project period, providing a mostly complete data record across 12 months of operation. However, due to limited resourcing and expertise, data quality assessment and analysis were not conducted, limiting the project’s ability to address the research question. It was also determined that rigorous study of aviation emissions around an airport likely requires the use of more costly sensing equipment that is able to capture more accurate data. Staff also noted that they lacked (or otherwise never accessed) contextual data – such as flight schedules and weather – that would be critical for usefully interpreting the air quality data that they collected.

Data analysis was never undertaken because the skills required for it did not exist on the project team and (despite some discussion of potentially engaging a PhD student) there was no budget assigned to support data analysis by a third party. At some point after formal wrap-up of the project, all three devices ceased reporting data. The team is unsure why this happened but hope to address the issue when resourcing allows.

Data sharing

At the time of the project, Tweed Shire Council lacked a discreet data-sharing policy that might have informed a position on sharing of project data. This was not considered to be a concern, as the focus of the project was not about community engagement or public data release. Rather, it was about exploring the use of low-cost air quality sensors as tools for enhancing Council’s air quality monitoring capabilities, developing internal understanding of the air pollution issue, and building skills and knowledge through collaboration and knowledge transfer with industry experts and peers.

Considerations by Council were made regarding additional workload that might be associated with addressing community concerns, following any public release of data. Effectively responding to such concerns would require Council to have confidence in interpreting the data and adopting an authoritative stance on its implications; outcomes which were not achieved. It is also important to note that aviation-related air pollution falls outside the direct responsibilities and jurisdiction of the Environmental Health Unit. Consequently, no operational funding was allocated to support the public dissemination of this data or to manage community responses. In this context, the decision not to release the data publicly was considered a pragmatic approach, allowing the Council to maintain its focus on core environmental compliance and regulation responsibilities.

Data was shared with the NSW state government via an API, supporting the experimental OPENAIR pilot data stream, which aggregates and harmonises data from multiple different Council monitoring networks across NSW. The decision to do this was made informally by the project team and was not the result of any structured data governance process.
 

Creating impact

The OPENAIR pilot project has resulted in the following positive impacts:

Upskilling and confidence-building for Council staff

Council staff who worked on the project (5 in total) have emphasised the value of OPENAIR participation in terms of what they learnt about air quality, smart sensing technology and data. While the data produced during the project has failed to deliver any insights, the team do engage with other environmental issue (like noise and water quality) where smart sensing is relevant. They look forward to employing their new knowledge in these other contexts.

Collaboration between Council units

The Environmental Health team commented on the strong collaboration between their unit, the IT unit and the Water and Wastewater Unit, noting that the project has built working relationships and trust between staff.

Engagement with concerned community members

Insufficient internal resourcing

The project required significantly more staff time than anticipated, posing a challenge for the Environmental Health team, who struggled to balance project activities with their core responsibilities. This limited the project’s ability to deliver actionable insights, underscoring the need for adequate resourcing in future initiatives.

Insufficient internal knowledge and expertise

PurpleAir devices are cost effective in large part because they have no external technical support and rely upon an inhouse DIY approach. While advice and information is available through a large global community of users, a baseline of technical knowledge and expertise is required of users in order to correctly calibrate devices, collect useable data and extract clear insights. This expertise was lacking within Council, leading to minimal technical oversight and no one to lead technical tasks. Consequently, best practices for experimental design, device calibration, deployment, and data management were not followed. For example, devices were not co-located with NSW regulatory monitoring stations before deployment, affecting data trust and interpretation.

Selection of deployment locations

Identifying appropriate deployment locations that were under the flight path, accessible, secure, Council-owned, and able to support the mounting of equipment was a key challenge. Physical installation of bulky solar-panels by the in-house team, while complying with WHS requirements, was a related challenge. This all led to a protracted process and only three out of a possible ten devices were deployed. Use of Council water treatment facilities, and collaboration with Council’s Water and Wastewater Unit, delivered a limited but workable solution.

Looking ahead

Tweed Shire Council’s OPENAIR pilot project highlights the challenges of addressing aviation-related air pollution, which falls outside local government regulation and the core responsibilities of the Environmental Health unit. This disconnect, combined with resourcing and expertise constraints, limited the project’s ability to deliver value. Despite this, council’s participation in OPENAIR positions council to better leverage smart sensing technology in future initiatives.