The concept

What about measuring the air you breathe?

The Captotheque is the air quality citizen measurement service of the Atmo Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes observatory. It allows everyone to explore the quality of the air by borrowing, free of charge and without any resource conditions, a micro-sensor for measurement in our partner territories. 

 

Air quality, a major challenge... but complex

Air quality is a major public health issue on our territories and each of us, citizens, economic and political actors have a power on the quality of the air we breathe.

However, it can be difficult to grasp the complexity of the phenomena involved in defining good or bad air quality. Atmo Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes has been working for more than 40 years to observe and scientifically study these phenomena, to forecast them and to inform the public. 

Today it is time for science and the public to meet, thanks to common tools and exchange spaces, to share their wills, experiences and knowledge on air quality.

 

Bringing citizens and air quality monitoring together

Thus, we believe that everyone should be able to experiment and freely observe the quality of the air they breathe, to form an opinion. Everyone has the right to discover atmospheric phenomena independently. And each discovery is important as long as it is shared and analyzed collectively.

So we want to open up a new path: bringing citizens together on a massive scale to observe the quality of the air, thanks to micro-sensors.

By offering everyone the ability to discover the air they breathe, we want increased observation of populations to be an additional weapon in the fight against pollution in our territories.

 

Micro-sensors to better understand our air

To succeed, we must find the best way to bring together, raise awareness and exchange locally on air quality. Various experiments carried out since 2010 with citizens have shown us that micro-sensors for measuring air quality used in a citizen participation logic meet these objectives. 

Widely deployed, micro-sensors could also provide the monitoring system with large volumes of data at finer spatial and temporal scales.

Beyond the technical aspects, however, citizen experimentation and individual air quality measurement allows everyone to freely define their own measurement strategy, to better understand and apprehend the various local phenomena.

 

Creating a community sensitive to air quality issues

Thus, listening to these results and the interest of local communities, Atmo Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes decided to launch the Captotheque. This device allows everyone to borrow a free micro-sensor to measure air quality in our partner territories.

By offering citizens the opportunity to observe the air quality themselves and to collectively share their findings, we want to sustainably engage an enlightened community, ready to act to improve air quality.

 

By offering this service, our ambition is to offer everyone, without resource conditions, the possibility to freely explore the quality of the air they breathe. By grouping and facilitating exchanges around these citizen discoveries, we want to democratize and amplify, at the local level, the debates, initiatives and knowledge to sustainably improve air quality in our region.