Operation, maintenance and calibration of environmental dust monitoring instruments

About the workshop

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is organising a three-day regional training workshop to enhance the capacity of our country partners on the operation, maintenance and calibration of environmental dust monitoring instruments and its daily operational aspects, maintenance, and troubleshooting. The event is being led by ICIMOD’s Action Area B (AAB) – Stimulating Action for Clean Air housed within ICIMOD’s Strategic Group 1 (SG1) – Reducing Climate and Environmental Risks.

The participants will receive hands-on training guided by a team of scientists and engineers from the original manufacturer. Based on the lessons from this workshop, ICIMOD envisions future training on other air quality parameters such as trace gases. The workshop will be attended by government officials from our regional member countries, academia, researchers and relevant private sectors.

Objectives

The specific objectives of this event are to:

• Build the capacity of partner institutions – government institutions, academia, and other relevant stakeholders – to operate, maintain and calibrate GRIMM Environmental Dust Monitor (EDM) instrument
• Ensure high-quality data generation and prevent further damage to the instrument

Background

As part of its capacity development work, the AAB, under SG1, has been providing trainings on the operation, maintenance, calibration, and interpretation of atmospheric monitoring instruments since 2016. These events are aimed at a range of practitioners and tailored to fit the needs and requirements of the member countries and partners. To continue ICIMOD’s aim in supporting its regional member countries with technical backstopping, we are initiating a three-day in-person training, with hands-on exercises on the operation, maintenance, and calibration of the GRIMM – Environmental Dust Monitor (EDM) manufactured by GRIMM Aerosol Technik Ainring GmbH & Co. KG, Germany.

Since its establishment, the AAB, in collaboration with partners form Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan government (Department of Environment, Department of Environment and Climate Change and Environment Protection Agency-Islamabad, respectively), has set up state-of-the-art air quality monitoring stations with aerosol and trace gas measuring instruments and later to extend them in Bangladesh. GRIMM instruments are being used in these stations as the primary instrument to measure dust concentrations i.e., range of Particulate Matter (PM). These instruments require regular servicing and calibration to ensure the highest quality of data is continued to be collected.