Bellingen weather and air quality monitoring

Distributed systems for measuring air quality provide data which complements that collected by government agencies. They monitor the air in places the government can't reach.

A non-profit open source system Air Quality Egg sells sensors to participating smart citizens and networks the information. The funding to start the Air Quality Egg project was crowd-sourced and the necessary capital was quickly raised.

Another citizen-based atmospheric monitoring system is available in a commercial form. Netatmo sells sensors measuring weather and air quality to interested participants and publishes the information as a map. Although the sensors provide information to the user about air quality, including CO2, PM10, PM2.5 and ozone, this information is unfortunately not shared on the map, just the temperatures and rainfall.

Sound is also monitored providing information about ambient noise from machinery such as logging, lawn mowers, chain saws or amplified music nearby. This information can be viewed with an app on a hand held device to determine if noise levels are tolerable. If you had to leave home because of noise, this can tell you from a distance when it is safe to return.

Ubiquitous pile fires of slash and burn culture

Publicly-collected weather information is more localised than mainstream weather forecasting and in places where larger numbers of weather stations are in operation, more information can be compared. Unlike official weather reports which are professionally produced, distributed information may be unreliable if monitors are not properly installed. The advantage however is that locations are monitored which official systems are unable to reach. There is one weather station in Bellingen (now relocated to Coffs Harbour) so far which shows truly local weather on this map.