Confronting Kirkuk’s Air Pollution Crisis – Empowering Action through Citizen Science and Open-Source Monitoring

Arriving at the northern edge of Kirkuk on the Erbil-Kirkuk highway after a day out of town, Basma’s throat felt a small irritation and her eyes began to water. A feeling she knows all too well, she was greeted by the lingering acrid stench of Kirkuk’s air, a confluence of gas flaring fumes, generator exhaust, among other industrial pollutants hanging heavy over the city – a grim welcome back. A few weeks later, resting at home on an autumn afternoon, she awoke to a throbbing head ache; as she came to, she realized the stench of burning plastic filled her room and permeated through her house. Peeking out of her front porch, she saw smouldering waste – someone had ignited one of the piles of garbage that lined the curbside just down the road, a consequence of frustrated residents attempting to deal with piles of waste left by the city’s inadequate waste management system. A wave of dread overcame her, she worried about what these fumes and constant exposure to air pollution were doing to her health, but in her selflessness, she was more anxious about how it would affect her family, her young cousin’s developing brain and body, and her aging diabetic father.

Basma’s experience is not unique. Residents of Kirkuk face a severe air pollution crisis, with dangerous levels of fine particulate matter permeating the air. Listening to Basma, and others like her, we know that Kirkuk’s air pollution is affecting quality of life and health, and something must change. That’s why Shaghaf Team has begun an initiative to monitor local air quality, making use of open-source high-quality monitoring equipment. With this effort, we aim to facilitate engagement with residents, involving locals in a process of citizen-science air quality monitoring, empowering people with the knowledge to understand the implications of air pollution and with tools for data collection and analysis. Through this participatory initiative, we’re improving air quality data transparency, strengthening community resilience, empowering locals with evidence-based insights about the environment they live in. Consequently, democratic participation is improved as residents are capable of engaging with government and industry, demanding accountability and pushing for policies that protect public health and the environment.

In 2019, an estimated 6.4 million people died prematurely due to exposure to PM2.5 air pollution, with 95% of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries, including Iraq.

Since beginning our monitoring in February 2025 at a site representative of a typical suburban neighourhood in Kirkuk, we’ve observed persistent unhealthy levels of PM2.5, indicative of a serious health crisis. Known as the “silent killer”, PM2.5 is associated with numerous negative health effects and outcomes, affecting short and long-term health, and increased risk of mortality. Globally, it is responsible for the premature deaths of over 4 million people annually, disproportionately affecting the Global South. In 2019, an estimated 6.4 million people died prematurely due to exposure to PM2.5 air pollution, with 95% of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries, including Iraq. Worryingly, studies indicate that even moderate exposure is linked to over 1 million premature deaths annually.

The health impacts of exposure to PM2.5 are well-documented, spanning a wide range of acute and chronic conditions. Short-term exposure is associated with respiratory diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cardiovascular conditions like heart attacks and strokes. Long-term exposure contributes to the development of lung cancer, reduced lung-function, adverse birth outcomes and neonatal disorders (including low birth weight and preterm births), decreased cognitive function, lowered intelligence, type-2 diabetes, increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and increased risk of mortality. Children, the elderly, individuals with pre-existing health conditions, and women are particularly vulnerable to these effects, making air pollution a silent but severe public health crisis.

Further, it cascades into socioeconomic dimensions. The literature makes it clear that higher levels of air pollution correspond to reduced economic output, materializing in numerous ways, including increased employee absenteeism, reduced performance, poorer cognitive function and decision making, and overall declines in workplace efficiency and competitiveness on a micro and macro scale. Even more, it exacerbates aggression and violence, as a result, increasing crime. Therefore, the burden of air pollution is significant, with its consequences far-reaching, permeating into virtually every aspects of life and society, underscoring the seriousness of this crisis and its devastating consequences.

PM2.5 in Almas, Kirkuk – Preliminary Data:

Our methodology includes using an Air Gradient Open Air O-1PST to monitor PM2.5 concentrations at an interval of 5 minutes. The model we’ve selected utilizes a Plantower PMS5003T laser scattering sensor, which has been subjected to numerous tests for accuracy, including a global co-location program, and is considered accurate when used with the EPA correction formula. All PM2.5 values presented here have been corrected for bias through the EPA correction formula.

The data we’ve recorded thus far at our Almas monitor site reveals high levels of PM2.5 through February and March, with daily averages often exceeding standards set by World Health Organization, but also benchmark standards from leading environmental authorities, including Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards (CAAQS), United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), and Australian National Standards. This comparison is used in the absence of sufficient national standards in Iraq.

Accordingly, the PM2.5 average for February is 32.94µg/m³ and March 28.46µg/m³, which is above the WHO annual guideline by a factor of 6.59 times and 5.69 times, respectively. All days recorded exceed the WHO annual PM2.5 guideline of 5µg/m³ and only 2 days fell within the WHO daily PM2.5 guideline of less than 15µg/m³. Air pollution reached dire heights of 51.82 µg/m³ during these two months, with such high concentrations exemplifying severe deterioration of air quality with potentially serious implications for public health and environment.

Importantly, it should be understood that there’s no safe level of PM2.5, and every 10μm/m³ in annual exposure is associated with a 7.3% increase in all-cause mortality.

Organizing our dataset by hourly averages for February and March, we observe PM2.5 values rising and falling during the nights vs days, alongside with temperature increases and decreases, indicative of a temperature inversion, consequently trapping air pollution at ground level during the night. An average PM2.5 vs Temperature line graph demonstrates this clearly, the lowest PM2.5 values are recorded, on average, during the warmer times of day. This difference can be explained by natural convection causing warm air to rise, dispersing air pollution from ground level.

Therefore, these preliminary findings are indicative of a serious air quality crisis. With the health and socioeconomic implications of PM2.5 air pollution well established in similar contexts, government and industry polluters must be held accountable and find methods to seriously reduce air pollution, and communities require the tools to hold them to account. Based on the air pollution levels measured thus far, it is clear that Kirkuk’s poor air quality is endangering both public health and the environment.

Exploring the Varying Sources of Kirkuk’s Air Pollution

Kirkuk’s air pollution crisis is fuelled by numerous industries across the city, including oil and gas, energy production, industrial and manufacturing, vehicular emissions, among other sources.

Gas flaring, a common practice at oil production sites around the city, occurs at dangerously close proximity to homes – as close as 120 meters in some areas, with measurable levels of heavy metals being released into the atmosphere. Flares release a toxic cocktail of pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), benzene, and heavy metals. The health consequences are increasingly visible, with the Iraqi government finally admitting to the link between gas flaring to increased cancer rates.

Further, the industrial sector throughout Kirkuk significantly contributes to Kirkuk’s poor air quality with minimal regulatory oversight. The most prominent example is Iraq’s largest cement factory, Kirkuk Cement Factory, located on the city’s south east outskirts, which was forced to shutdown and perform mandated upgrades after residents long complained of “poison” in the air harming their health and environment. While this particular cement plant came under scrutiny and made headlines, numerous other sources continue to operate unchecked, polluting the air, including brick kilns, foundries, among other industries which lack necessary filtration and emissions control systems.

Beyond industrial emissions, inadequate public infrastructure has entrenched Kirkuk’s reliance on diesel-powered generators – devices notorious for their harmful exhaust, releasing carcinogens and black carbon into ground level air. Chronic power outages leave locals with little choice but to rely on private generators, which are situated around and embedded within residential and commercial neighbourhood, steeping the air in carcinogens. In peer nations, reliance on diesel for private generators has been described as “national suicide” with skyrocketing cancer rates coinciding with their use. In Kirkuk, like many cities in Iraq, without urgent intervention to modernize infrastructure, the city will continue to face the serious resulting heath burden through disease, cancer, and harm to public health

Vehicular exhaust also constitutes a serious problem, particularly due to low-quality fuels coinciding with often missing catalytic converter, a component in a vehicle used to catalyze and burn exhaust fumes. Without a catalytic converter, incomplete combustion leads to higher emissions, contributing to formation of PM2.5 and ground level ozone. This may be, in-part, why our preliminary data reveals PM2.5 values elevated in the evening, potentially due to local vehicular traffic patterns.

Poor waste management in Kirkuk also reduces the city’s air quality, with residents frequently burning waste to free up space, as a result, releasing toxic fine particulate matter into the air. At Shaghaf, we’ve talked to locals who’ve voiced complaints about this in their neighbourhood. The young woman earlier in this post described to us the smell of burning waste on the street penetrating into her home multiple times, with her father running outside to try and extinguish burning garbage across the street in one instance. She said when it happens, it causes her painful head aches after the foul smell filled her home. Importantly, combustion of waste releases dangerous carcinogens like dioxins, furans, and black carbon.

Empowering Communities for Cleaner Air

The preliminary data presented here underscores the urgent need for intervention by government and industry to mitigate the air pollution crisis Kirkuk faces, and for citizens and civil society to monitor and advocate for clean air policies. We’ve recorded elevated levels of PM2.5 which exceed international standards on a daily basis between February and March, often by several times, indicative of degraded air quality that risks public health and the environment.

Solutions to this problem are not easy, requiring a multi-faceted approach including clear policy and guidelines, proactive monitoring across the city to isolate sources of pollution, stricter regulatory enforcement, transitioning to cleaner energy sources, eliminating wasteful flaring in place of technology like liquid natural gas capture, improving public infrastructure and waste collection, improving automobile regulations, scheduling emissions heavy activities to coincide with atmospheric conditions for improved air dispersal, proper city planning and zoning, among other solutions.

Effective change also requires local engagement. Community-based air quality monitoring networks are a crucial step towards tackling air pollution, empowering locals, and enhancing democratic governance through informed citizenry. With this effort thus far, Shaghaf Team contributes to a growing practice of strategically using low-cost high quality devices in the Global South, improving citizen participation in data collection, which empowers residents to understand their exposure to harmful pollutants and advocate for change.

Empowering citizens with this data is extremely important in the Iraqi context; based on our conversations with local environmentalists and activists, many feel their concerns are routinely dismissed by officials due to a supposed “lack of data” – which, locals have told us is a frustratingly excuse for inaction, given overwhelming research already exists from similar contexts. With that in mind, equipping communities with independent gathered data through projects like this one, we can challenge this narrative and shift conversations from whether pollution is a problem to instead what must be done about it.

As individuals, we can take steps to contribute to change; participation in citizen science initiatives like this one, using the data collected to advocate for cleaner air policies, and sharing open data to foster greater transparency and accountability. The fight for cleaner air must be a collective effort that we all work towards, and we must move with urgency. Failure to act means Kirkuk will continue to face an already known outcome in public health, with needlessly elevated cancer rates, greater disease burden, and reduction in overall quality life coinciding with higher risk of premature mortality.

Note: To safeguard the identities of individuals who shared their experiences, names in this article have been changed or excluded. All other details remain accurate.

A Commitment to Kirkuk: Community-Driven Research and Funding

This research is entirely grassroots-driven. Air monitoring hardware was personally purchased by the author, and the research is conducted independently without financial incentive, benefit, or association with any other group or organization, with primary motivation being a genuine commitment to the well-being of the people of Kirkuk and Iraq. This effort is solely based on a desire to contribute to the community’s health and well-being.