A research plan update has been published for the Hub's Impact Priority 4 (IP4) research theme, Air quality.
The IP4 research update is part of the Hub's recently published Research Plan 2023 following its approval from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Read the updated 2023 research project details for IP4
Summary of four projects
- Project – Let’s yarn about smoke: A foundational project, are intended to be a roadmap forward for cooperation and engagement in a broad scope of Indigenous identified research priorities, stakeholders and potential opportunities to undertake activities that will contribute to better management of the impacts of smoke from planned and unplanned fires on First Nations people and the broader Australian community.
- Project - How will a changing climate and emissions reduction measures impact sources of air pollution and secondary pollutant formation? The project is a modelling study that will provide a lens on how altered we can expect air quality to be under future emission scenarios in Australia. It will be guided by literature review results investigating a range of climate change scenarios and emission reduction policies. It will leverage modelling capability in the Climate Systems Hub and will potentially contribute to cross hub Initiative activities. The goal of this project will be to complete the activities necessary to design and implement a set of future modelling experiments based on a range of climate scenarios, and the research outcomes will be used by government agencies for managing future changes to air quality and health.
- Project - Woodheaters: developing and testing novel solutions to a persistent problem: A multi-year program (IP3.02.03) aims to implement and evaluate novel solutions to wood heater emissions to (a) directly inform policy and (b) support the scaling up of successful interventions. project seeks to address key evidence and capability gaps by supporting and evaluating novel wood heater interventions. Six regions are being identified that experience wood smoke pollution, and that have air quality monitoring in place. Three regions will trial interventions, and three will act as controls. The outcomes will provide practical guidance and solutions for decision makers across Australia. It is highly relevant to research-users
- Project - Air filters: A multi-year project focused on working with stakeholders such as ACT Health, Victoria EPA, Department of Health Victoria and NSW DPE to apply the knowledge identified thus far to create intervention case studies. This will include further comparative evaluation of HEPA filters themselves (in a laboratory setting) to their use in real world interventions studies, in for example, clean air shelters to reduce risk from air pollution, with a focus on vulnerable populations. This project aims to provide up to date guidance on the choice and use of LCS and HEPA filters in the Australian context.
