Research

Silent killer in the kitchen

Scientists investigating air pollution in Pakistan have identified significant health risks indoors caused by kitchen smoke. Concentrations of air pollutants indoors were many times higher than those outdoors, in both rural and urban areas.

The research was carried out through collaboration between Essex's Centre for Environment and Society (CES) band two universities in Pakistan.

Measurements in Pakistan were carried out by Essex postgraduate research student Zaheer A Nasir. He found the concentration of various pollutants was considerably higher than any international standard in both rural and urban areas. Vehicle pollution was the principal contributor to poor air quality in urban areas, while the rural population was intensively exposed to the 'silent killer', kitchen smoke.

Mr Nasir explained: 'In Pakistan, there is a dearth of knowledge on air pollution. With almost 70 per cent of the population living in rural areas, the use of wood, dung and crop residues as a fuel for cooking and heating is widespread.

'According to the World Health Organisation more than 3 billion people rely on solid fuels, including biofuels, for their energy needs, worldwide. The use of biomass fuels in traditional stoves produces high levels of indoor air pollutants. Biomass smoke contains a large number of pollutants that, at varying concentration cause a serious threat to human health, particularly women and children. Indoor air pollution is responsible for more than 1.6 million annual deaths.'

Professor Ian Colbeck, Director of the CES was the principal investigator on the study, which involved the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) and the University of The Punjab, both in Lahore.

 Air pollution in Pakistan

 

UKDA leads major new European project

This month sees the start of a major two-year project co-ordinated by the UK Data Archive (UKDA).

Funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, this award, totalling €2.7 million, aims to develop the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) research infrastructure (RI). It is a direct result of the CESSDA RI being identified by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap exercise as a research network of excellence.

Over 30 years old, the CESSDA network extends to 21 countries across Europe. Through its data exchange agreements, CESSDA provides access gateways to important social science data materials and EU investments such as the European Social Survey, the Eurobarometers, the International Social Survey Programme and the European Values Surveys. In recent years CESSDA has developed resource discovery and data management and access tools, such as Nesstar and the multilingual CESSDA data portal as a result of EC-funding.

Led by Professor Kevin Schürer, Director of the UKDA the aim of the new project is to plan the future development of the CESSDA RI and will focus on resolving strategic, financial and legal issues to ensure that European social science and humanities researchers have access to the data they require to conduct research, irrespective of the location of either researcher or data.

The project will consist of several interlinked work packages, including: developing and extending the data portal to provide a fully-integrated data infrastructure allowing seamless access to data holdings across Europe; developing common authentication and access middleware tools; extending the coverage of the CESSDA RI; providing secure data facilities for data dissemination; improving data harmonisations tools and the development of a European question bank of survey responses.

 

Also in the printed January edition of Wyvern:

• Bookshelf
• New venture for Chimera
• Grant for crop survival