« Thanks to this joint initiative, we have a very concrete example to illustrate this path in which the CNRS has always been engaged and which we continually reaffirm: research in the service of society “. These are the words with which Antoine Petit, President and CEO of the CNRS, congratulated Yann Tastevin and Mélina Macouin, respectively research officer and director at the CNRS, on Thursday, June 27, 2024, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. That evening, the two scientists won the “Co-construction” prize at the third national participatory research awards ceremony, organized by Inrae, for their “AirGéo” project. Another participatory research project to which CNRS scientists contributed – Spipoll, dedicated to the photographic monitoring of pollinating insects – received the “Citizen Collection” prize.
For six years, from Toulouse to Dakar, AirGéo has been studying air pollution in domestic spaces. The subject is important: according to the WHO, poor air quality causes 4.2 million premature deaths each year worldwide, including 40,000 in France. To measure the environmental and health impact of these micro- and nanoparticles, the anthropologist and geophysicist invented a device low tech : passive sensors, with low environmental impact, which come in the form of small garlands of bark to be installed at home.
Collect data
A first experiment, called “NanoEnvi”, took place in Toulouse in 2018. Its aim was to quantify magnetic particles and nanoparticles from road traffic in 150 homes and their fate from the street to the interior of homes.
Four years later, Yann Tastevin and Mélina Macouin replicated their initial experience in Dakar, Senegal, where the international Environment, Health, Societies research laboratory of which the anthropologist is deputy director is located. The latter has been carrying out research for several years on the recovery and transformation sectors for metals originating in Europe. The AirGéo project is more specifically interested in the Senegalese cultural center Kër Thiossane and its fablab Defko Ak Niëp (“doing together” in French), in Dakar, and in the town of Sebikotane, 45 km east of the capital, which has become in a few years a major industrial center for the agri-food sector and whose town hall and citizen associations seek to know the quality of the air they breathe on a daily basis.
To do this, the project leaders, supported by the Mission for transversal and interdisciplinary initiatives of the CNRS and with the collaboration of the IRD and the Cheik-Anta-Diop University of Dakar and the Belmont Forum, installed sensors made of eucalyptus bark in homes in Dakar and Sebikotane. Managing to deploy them in the private forum, deemed by residents to be sheltered from external pollution, did not, however, go without problems. To successfully involve the population in this research project, its leaders carried out intense co-construction work with the municipality, neighborhood delegates, women responsible for community health as well as young people from associations, theater actors and forum and of course the residents welcoming said sensors into their homes. A success praised by the CEO of the CNRS in his presentation speech, emphasizing “ the mutual trust that has been established to find solutions to questions of both science and better living ».
Inventing solutions
Two years after its launch, AirGéo led to a certain number of concrete initiatives to improve air quality in the two municipalities: creation of a citizens’ association for vegetation regeneration, new local town planning plan, training of environmental mediators, participation of factories in conciliation, management of lead poisoning by local poison control centers and launch of health and toxicology studies, but also a science-arts-society festival in the neighborhoods and a traveling exhibition.
AirGéo does not intend to stop there. With the support of CNRS Sciences humaines et sociales, one of the organization’s ten institutes, the project will soon set up a permanent observatory to consolidate the synergy of actors and actresses in favor of sustainable urban development.
« In this project, believes Antoine Petit, The scientists and participants are, in my opinion, exactly in the right place: with the residents who will be the first beneficiaries of the system, the scientists co-construct the project, manufacture the sensors, discuss the protocols, conduct the field surveys, then collectively organize the restitution of the data and the results. ».
