New technology developed for monitoring pollution featured on Planet Earth Online podcast
Dr Leigh explains City Scan to David Willetts during a 2011 visit.
Dr Roland Leigh and PhD student Rosie Graves from the Earth Observation Science Group in our Department of Physics and Astronomy appeared on Planet Earth Online's weekly podcast to explain their pollution-monitoring project City Scan.
City Scan measures scattered sunlight to reveal the amount of nitrogen dioxide there is at every point in a city - rather than just at certain fixed 'hotspots' as is possible with existing technology.
This allows the team to pinpoint the air quality level for every street or building in an urban area, and they hope their findings will help to stop vulnerable people from being exposed to poor air quality.
The researchers, who plan to take their technology to London to measure the impact of increased traffic during the Olympics, spoke to BBC science correspondent Richard Hollingham on the show, which reaches 4,000 listeners each month direct from Planet Earth Online, plus around 200,000 more through the features broadcast on the Naked Scientists radio show and website. The story was also followed up by BBC Radio Leicester (at around 1hr 55mins) this week.
