Carleton looks at what the Experimental Farm's greenspace means to Ottawa's health
Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: December 7, 2016 | Last Updated: December 7, 2016 5:28 PM EST
A Carleton University team is mapping the air quality in the Central Experimental Farm, an effort to learn how much central Ottawa’s giant green space helps our health.
Paul Villeneuve’s students are measuring the air current quality as a starting point for comparing changes in the air as the farm is developed for a new hospital, and perhaps more beyond that.
“I don’t think anyone out there says we’re going to bulldoze the Experimental Farm and completely develop it,” said Villeneuve, who teaches about environmental health at Carleton.
But after one development is approved, “There will be another need five years from now, 10 years from now. So it speaks to the issue of having something there that can protect the farm space.”
This comes at a time when infill is removing green space from residential neighbourhoods, he says. With the farm, “a quarter of our population lives within two kilometres from the outer boundaries of it.”
“I would say it’s a really important health benefit and a lot of the studies that are coming out now are (showing) it.
Just what are the benefits?
• “Women who live in greener neighbourhoods tend to have healthy, high-birth-weight babies compared to women who don’t,” Villeneuve said;
• “We’re seeing a lot of studies that people who live in greener areas tend to exercise more and have lower rates of obesity (and) lower rates of mortality,” he said;
• There’s less noise and traffic in the area. Summer temperatures are lower; pavement and buildings cause a temperature rise known as an “urban heat island;”
• Lessening the noise has been linked to improved stress levels and mental health. And the farm is believed to reduce long-term exposure to air pollution, which is linked to premature mortality, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, diabetes and cognitive decline;
Grad students Keith Van Ryswyk, Erika Brisson, Mona Ahmad and Natasha Prince call themselves the Farm Squad. They spent two weeks in October setting up 41 air-quality and noise monitors around the Farm and taking daily readings. They’ll do it again in winter, and Villeneuve hopes a new squad will form in summer after the first four graduate.
The squad has had adventures. Their blog tells how they set out air monitors:
“We strapped them to lamp poles and left them there for two weeks to fend for themselves. For 14 days they have sat there, like eggs in inverted tin nests (rain shelters).” However, “some of the noise meters have been stolen.
“Their small blinking LED lights must have been too much to resist for some. In these three instances, we are at least grateful that they spared our NO2 (nitrogen dioxide — a marker of traffic exhaust) and VOC (volatile organic compounds — markers of many anthropogenic source) samples.
“Arriving at one site, we learn that an entire sampling set up was confiscated by the police, tin nest and all. It was eventually returned to us, encased in an evidence bag, but too late to make use of the data it collected.”
Still, they got their measurements, mostly:
“For one hour every morning and another at night, we have driven in and around the (Central Experimental Farm) so that we will be able map these exposures across the farm and in the surrounding neighbourhoods. In the time between our one-hour tours, we are scampering up or down ladders to maintain a network of 41 air pollution monitors that have been scattered throughout our study area. We do this because we recognize how important an issue this is to our community.”
“I would say it has an enormous footprint in the city of Ottawa, just by the sheer size of it,” Villeneuve said. “So it has enormous (health) impacts.”
“I drive past there every day and see cycling through” while others walk dogs or visit the Arboretum.
tspears@postmedia.com
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