Projecten

This project aims to explore the basic principles of a decision support system that allows the continuous monitoring of the working conditions of seafarers. For this purpose, it wants to (1) measure several environmental parameters simultaneously (e.g., temperature, light, NO2, O3, etc.), (2) convert the measurements into a global air quality, and (3) visualize the evolution in air quality so that seafarers can easily evaluate the working conditions. The system will be tested on a real-life case study.

Low-cost decision support system to evaluate the impact of ships on the air quality in the port city Cienfuegos

A project team from Santa Clara (Cuba) and Antwerp will build a decision support system to evaluate the impact of ship generated emissions on human health. For this, we need to develop a low-cost air quality moni-toring system that can measure air pollution (e.g., CO2, NOx, SO2, O3, particulate matter). The system will be evaluated in terms of stability, robustness and reliability. Low-cost calibration methods are essential to obtain reliable data from the sensors. The impact of a pollution source can be evaluated by deploying several moni-toring devices at different distances or positions from the source (i.e., a ship in the harbor of Cienfuegos). By combining the data from the monitoring devices, it is possible to isolate the behaviour of the source from background sources (i.e., noise generated by other traffic or industrial activities, etc.). The impact of short term activities such as ship arrival, maneuvering loading and unloading at berth on human health will be studied. The academic community in Cuba will receive a powerful tool to fight against pollution and climate change.

Improving the accessibility & reusability of the AIRCHECQ deliverables to new disciplines

The valorisation goal of the AIRCHECQ+ project is to make the developed AIRCHECQ results accessible outside the domain they were originally intended for. During this project we explicitly target sectors where air quality has an impact on its immediate environment (comfort and human health in ships, corrosion prevention of wind mills, the fluctuating hazard intensity of pollution sources such as power plants, etc.). The goal is to explore the potential to enable growth and innovation through reuse of the AIRCHECQ results by all stakeholders at all levels of society and not only by the original target group of the AIRCHECQ project.

Effects of Air Quality on Health in Accommodations of Ships: monitoring of environmental parameters, risk analysis and recommendations

 An important difference between shipping and other forms of freight transport is that sailing personnel live for longer periods on their ship. As a result, these people might also be exposed to air pollution sources such as exhaust gases, cargo vapours or pollution originating from harbours during their free time. For example, for inland shipping it is common that children sail along during holidays. Unfortunately, we have insufficient knowledge about the indoor air quality in the accommodations of ships.

A joint team of the Antwerp Maritime Academy, KdG University of Applied Sciences and Arts, and VITO aims to evaluate the health risks of sailing personnel in the living areas on board of ships. To realize that ambition, the ELGAS-project will realize the following objectives.

• Develop a measuring system that informs sailing personnel in real time about health risks
• Deploy the system on multiple ships
• Get an insight into the air quality in the accommodations of ships
• If needed, make proposals to improve air quality
• Involve other organisations in the realization of our goals

SATellite IMage analysis for AIR quality on ships: an exploratory investigation

Sensor-based measuring campaigns in the accommodations of ships are able to identify numerous events. Unfortunately, the data do not contain enough information to identify the cause of these events. Some of the causes must be found in the immediate surroundings of the ship. Examples of such external causes are the ship entering a harbour where the air quality is worse, an inland ship passing by a factory that is emitting pollution, or a cue of ships that is waiting in front or inside a lock while all the engines are running. A huge amount of open data is generated by the satellites of the Copernicus-program. They can be used to analyse the surroundings of a ship along its journey and to find explanations for the events that are detected by air quality measuring campaigns performed inside the accommodations of ships.