{"id":10834,"date":"2020-08-28T09:18:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T06:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=10834"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","slug":"how-were-measuring-air-quality-in-kampala-and-why-it-works-for-african-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/08\/28\/how-were-measuring-air-quality-in-kampala-and-why-it-works-for-african-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"How We&#8217;re Measuring Air Quality in Kampala &#8211; and Why It Works for African Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Uganda, even though air pollution is a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iamat.org\/country\/uganda\/risk\/air-pollution\">big challenge<\/a>&nbsp;in parts of the country, there is hardly any air quality monitoring. Engineer Bainomugisha &#8211; along with other scientists at AirQo, Makerere University &#8211; has developed a machine that monitors air quality. He explains how it works, and why it&#8217;s so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What are the main drivers of air pollution in Kampala and are there any indications of how bad it is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Generally, I would say the main drivers of air pollution in Kampala are transport, industry, burning of wood or charcoal and burning of waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kampala is Uganda&#8217;s political capital and financial district contributing to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/documents.worldbank.org\/en\/publication\/documents-reports\/documentdetail\/860311505816462189\/uganda-from-regulators-to-enablers-role-of-city-governments-in-economic-development-of-greater-kampala\">over 30%<\/a>\u00a0of Uganda&#8217;s GDP. The city hosts\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ubos.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/publications\/03_20182010_COBE_Report.pdf\">more than<\/a>\u00a032% of the country&#8217;s manufacturing facilities and so industrial emissions from activity &#8211; such as metal processing, furniture, textiles and plastics &#8211; will contribute a significant amount of pollution to the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s a very busy city, with millions using buses, private vehicles and motorbikes to commute in and out every day. A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openjicareport.jica.go.jp\/pdf\/12013025_01.pdf\">great deal<\/a>\u00a0of pollution therefore\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindawi.com\/journals\/jeph\/2014\/763934\/#results\">comes from<\/a>\u00a0vehicle emissions and heavy traffic congestion. To make matters worse, most of the vehicles in Kampala are pre-owned and, until 2018, the average fleet age was\u00a0more than\u00a015 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202008270477.html\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Uganda, even though air pollution is a&nbsp;big challenge&nbsp;in parts of the country, there is hardly any air quality monitoring. Engineer Bainomugisha &#8211; along with other scientists at AirQo, Makerere&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}