Combating Air Pollution through Data Generation and Reinterpretation: Community Air Monitoring in Taiwan

Abstract

Although cities in Taiwan are not as choked by smog as Beijing or Delhi, where people can hardly enjoy blue skies, air pollution is still a serious problem and has repeatedly aroused social concerns in central and southern Taiwan since 2010. Unsatisfied with the government’s passive responses, the citizen groups in Taiwan have initiated several air monitoring projects to develop air-pollution claims and contest the deficiencies of the official air-pollution standard, data, and regulatory actions. Inspired by the concept of social movement–based citizen science, this article discusses how local community people have participated in knowledge production by integrating their observation and experiences into the scientific practices of air monitoring. The discussions particularly address citizens’ data generation and interpretation efforts that signaled the alternative air quality information and triggered on-demand responses from the government to improve the air quality management measures. The analysis further highlights the characteristics of community air monitoring in Taiwan as well as its potentials and limitations.

雖然台灣都會區的空氣不像中國北京或印度德里總是霧霾遮天那般的嚴重, 但空污仍是一個嚴重的問題,自2010年之後,更引起台灣中南部居民不間斷的社會關注。 不滿意政府被動的回應態度,一些台灣的民間團體發起了空氣監測的實驗計畫,為強調空氣污染嚴重性的主張發聲,並挑戰官方空氣品質標準、資料生產與管制行動的缺失。立基在社會運動為主的公民科學觀點,本文討論地方社區團體如何將他們的觀察與經驗,結合系統性的空污監測實做,進而產生政策上的影響。本文特別著重於公民資料生產與詮釋的努力,因為其提供了理解地方空氣品質的替代性管道,並促成政府正視民間需求,從而尋求發展空氣品質管理監測的改善計畫。回應公民空污監測科學的既有文獻,分析中也特別強調台灣社區空氣監測的特色,及其發展的潛力與限制。