We should all participate in scientific research

n the 1990s, air quality was a major public health concern for Taiwan. In response, the government of Taiwan took swift regulatory action. To understand where air quality levels were the worst, Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration established official air-quality monitoring stations. In addition, it set strict limits on industrial as well as vehicle emissions. The results of these efforts were mixed at best. Compliance with the emission standards was variable and the centralized network of monitoring stations lacked sufficient geographic coverage.

Chen Ling-jyh and Hsu Wuulong, two residents of Taipei, tried a different approach. They built an open-source air quality sensor they called the Airbox and released the directions for how to make and install the hardware on social media. While adoption of this movement was slow to start, it eventually took off. Since 2018, due the culmination of these and other efforts, Taiwan’s annual average PM2.5 concentration dropped by 38% and the city of Taipei has become one of the most breathable large cities in Eastern Asia.

How were Chen Ling-jyh and Hsu Wuulong and their Airbox initiative able to start a movement that addressed a national emergency in a way the federal government alone was unable to do? Well, the Airbox initiative was a bottom-up participatory strategy, while the federal government took a hierarchical top-down approach to the issue. In a hierarchical top-down approach, leaders of a community make decisions on the behalf of the communities they lead. In a participatory bottom-up approach, leaders don’t solve problems on behalf of members of the community, but instead members of a community are empowered to be part of that solution.

With the former approach, the federal government had to work within a determined budget to set up air-quality monitoring stations. With the latter approach, concerned citizens built Airboxes at their own expense. This collaborative positive sum strategy is what allowed for abundant localized geographic coverage. As citizen engagement grew, the Airbox initiative got the attention of the local government, which added this project to its Smart City project. It also helped the project garner support from Edimax Technology, the corporation handling the AirBox’s system integration, which decided to donate AirBoxes to several of Taiwan’s municipalities.

Since the Airbox and related smart sensor projects provided a pathway for citizens to contribute to the solution, they created a self-reinforcing network effect of participation and vigilance that resulted in the creation of over 500 pollution reports, resulting in regulatory penalties totaling more than NT$100 million and the recovery of approximately NT$280 million in air pollution fees. It was this community driven enforcement, supported by the federal enforcement of regulations that made intervention effective.