A new methodology based on citizen science to improve environmental odour management

This paper outlines a new methodology to gather valid real time odour observations in the impact area of an odour emitting activity by using citizen science tools and a quadruple helix approach (Cavallini et al., 2016), to involve the public authorities, the odour emitting industries, the Academia and the citizens and co-design local solutions to reduce nuisance. The results of the proposed innovative bottom-up approach can contribute to identify improvements in the daily practice of the industries such us operations that cause peaks of emissions, or the critical times of the day that increase nuisance due to non-favourable meteorological conditions, while improving the relationships with the citizens and the local environmental authorities, as well as increasing transparency. In addition, the cost of traditional odour studies can be reduced since the real time odour observations gathered by the citizens have no associated costs.