the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 21 May 2026
Enhancing Urban Air Quality Mapping through Novel Measurement and Modelling approaches, and Citizen Science: Actionable Insights from the RI-URBANS Project
Abstract. Air Quality is among the most environmental issues impacting the urban populations. Traditional air quality networks can assess time trends and assess compliance to air quality regulations, but to understand sources and assess exposure. The RI-URBANS project is a European initiative aiming to develop new strategies and enhance the existing tools to address the air quality challenges and societal needs in European cities. This paper presents an overview of the pilots of the RI-URBANS project associated with air quality mapping and pollution hotspot identification using modelling, novel measuring methodologies and mapping techniques. Special focus is given on the discussion of the novel measuring methodologies introduced with the use of low-cost sensors, mobile measurements and citizen participation in the data collection process, with pilot projects undertaken in the core pilot cities in Europe and other projects from cities outside the pilot's core. The findings highlight the significance of participatory science, technological advancements in air quality measurement, and the potential for policy integration. The project's outcomes suggest that integrating stationary sensor networks, mobile monitoring platforms, and citizen engagement can significantly enhance urban air quality management, alongside traditional monitoring and modelling methodologies. This study highlights the important work undertaken by the participating cities and the novel approaches to disentangle the complicated air pollution patterns and improve the air quality for everyone, while making this crucial information easily obtainable.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-2592', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Jun 2026
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-2592', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Jun 2026
General comments
The manuscript aims to provide a summary and review of the broader RI-URBANS project. While the discussion and conclusion provide useful synthesis of the lessons learned across the project, the abstract, methods, and results are currently quite generalized and unstructured, making it difficult to gain a sense of the full scale of the program. With improved structure and a more explicit overview of each pilot, this manuscript will be a useful review of the important RI-URBANS project.
Specific comments
The abstract is very generalized. The authors should add more specific project details and outcomes, drawing on what is written in the discussion and conclusion.
Lines 133-138: I am confused on what the difference is between the two main approaches. The authors should add more details to clarify.
Section 2.1 should introduce each of the campaigns and give an overview of their goals, what equipment or approach they used, etc. This will improve the readability instead of introuding the campaigns in the results. A specific map of the pilot projects (not just the countries involved) with a visual representation of each focus (modelling? Citizen science? Etc.) would be very helpful.
Section 2.2: This is a very generalized section. A table outlining each pilot and the data collection technique used (along with sensor type, calibration technique, etc.) would help provide a more specific, yet brief overview of the methods used across the RI-URBANS program.
Section 2.3: Again, this section would be much easier to read if each of the campaigns had already been introduced, allowing for more specific details for each campaign. As it is now, the second paragraph reads more like an introduction section about air pollution modelling.
Section 3: Right now, it is hard to follow the long list of pilots without any big picture view of the broader project. See comment on section 2.1
Technical corrections:
Line 16: It seems like an adjective is missing in between “most” and “environmental”… One of the most important environmental issues, perhaps?
Line 19: delete “assess” before exposure
Lines 23, 25, 61, : change “measuring” to measurement
Line 27: delete the second themes
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2592-RC2
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Enhancing Urban Air Quality Mapping through Novel Measurement Modelling approaches and Citizen Science: Actionable Insights from the RI-URBANS Project
Summary
This paper presents a summary of measurement and modelling approaches for urban air quality mapping and hotspot identification applied across the pilot studies from the RI-URBANS project. It describes the different methods used in each pilot, key insights and learnings from citizen science participation.
General comments
By summarising the methods and findings across the pilot studies, this paper provides practical guidelines for the development of future air monitoring networks and has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the field. However, major revisions are required before publication, particularly with respect to the paper's structure and organisation, to ensure that its key messages and contributions are clearly highlighted.
While currently structured thematically to some extent the authors still describe each pilot study as a separate paragraph including a lot of information, which gets lost in the results. Rather than discussing each pilot individually, the authors may consider comparing the measurement and modelling approaches used across the different pilots, highlighting what worked well for which research question/scale/pollutant, what challenges were encountered, and what lessons were learned. This would provide important insights to help design future air monitoring networks. A summary table presenting the different approaches, objectives, challenges, key findings, and actionable insights from each pilot study would help in this context.
Specific comments
Methodology
It would be helpful to have further background about the RI-URBANs project and the pilots reviewed in this paper in this section. Also, this section may be used to introduce the different measurement and modelling approaches, which are currently listed separately for each pilot in the results section.
2.2 What is the novel part of the measurements? Is it the combination of approaches, pollutants measured or the involvement of citizen science? Currently the novelty of the measurements is not clear to me.
2.3 This section needs strengthening – currently it just provides a broad overview of commonly used modelling approaches which do not necessary appear to reflect the models introduced in the results section.
Results and Discussion
As mentioned above, this appears to currently be a list of approaches and results from each pilot, instead it would be helpful to compare and contrast the methods across the pilots and highlight the actionable insights from these methods.