Densification of air quality monitoring in Nigeria: Progress and challenges

Pollution is a major problem in developing countries.  There has been much studies on water pollution and its relation to communicable diseases with little attention to air pollution.  Air quality problem in sub-Saharan Africa is pervasive due to lack of awareness and paucity of reliable data.  The lack of reliable data has limited our underestanding and quantification of its impact on the population.  To address this problem, the the Centre for Atmospheric Research, Nigeria, and the Alliance for Education, Science, Engineering and Design in Africa of the Penn State University collaborated to densify air quality monitoring networks in Nigeria.  The programme has succeeded in deploying over 70 monitoring networks across the country within the last two years. Using data from the network, the impact of air quality especially in relation to diseases have been assessed within Nigeria.   This approach has revealed significant association between air quality and COVID-19 infections.  Furthermore, the available data has helped in understanding the sources of air pollution in different regions of the country.  This is helping in formulating environmental policy, planning, and monitoring for reduction of air pollution.  In this presentation, the progress and challenges in the densification of air quality monitoring stations across the country will be presented.