Ortelium in operation as odour reporting tool in North Rhine-Westphalia

Ortelium was recently used in a project in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

LANUV, the State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection North Rhine-Westphalia was investigating odour complaints in the southern Erft district, a region near the City of Cologne. More than 1000 odour complaints had been registered in less than a year by citizens in this area.

The LANUV initiated a variety of activities with the aim of identifying possible sources of the odour nuisance.

One action was the use of Ortelium as an odour reporting tool. A group of about 40 people was authorised by the LANUV to use the Ortelium app to report odour observations.

The app registered the exact time and location of each observation. In addition, the odour inspectors were asked to describe the odour by selecting from a predefined list of odour qualities. Subsequently, the Ortelium backtracking capabilities enabled the LANUV to analyse the pathway of air particles with the aim of identifying possible sources of reported odour observations.

In addition, Ortelium was used to record details on odour intensities and hedonic tone.

By using Ortelium, it was possible to show that in the present case, the transmission of odours is possible even over long distances, allowing potential sources to be identified that were initially considered unlikely.

Furthermore, it was shown that the intensity levels reported by the odour inspection panel differed from those of the citizen complaints. This confirmed the assumption that the information provided by citizens is not a matter of odour intensity, but rather of the perceived odour nuisance.

For the Ortelium team, it was also a successful project to understand client requirements and how to meet them more targeted with Ortelium.

Are you also looking for a well-managed procedure to record and manage odour complaints? Contact us today via ortelium@olfasense.com to schedule your web demo with us!