Yhoda Net Zero Data Challenge 2025

Introduction

In early September I attended the YHODA Net Zero Data Challenge which is a hackathon style event focusing on sustainability challenges. This post discusses each day and what I learnt.

Day 1

The session kicked off with registration and refreshments, where I unofficially formed a team with 3 others (adding an extra member later).

Firstly we learnt about Open Data and how YHODA utilises it in their YEP data analytics portal.

Next we learnt about “Wicked Problems” and how sustainability challenges often fall under this category. This was then linked to the UN Sustainable Development goals and the trade-offs between social, environmental and economic pillars (people, planet profit).

Following this we learnt about SYSC’s approach linking Project Themes and Work Packages (more on the linked site). Linked to this was 4 SYSC Projects Funded in 2024.

After this, we were introduced to the problems that we could choose from. These problems were:

• Land Use for Community Energy
• Air Quality in Sheffield
• Variability in Gas Emissions
• Net Zero Opportunity Index
• Emissions Trends and Public Health

See their web page for more info: https://yhoda.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/news-events/net-zero-data-challenge

After an in depth discussion we selected “Air Quality in Sheffield”. This project looks at multiple dimensions of Sheffield’s air quality and comparing it to the WHO’s air quality guidelines, with scope to suggest policy to decrease pollution.

Day 2

Our group met up and discussed the project direction. After this, I went away and started gathering various data sources: IMD areas, Sheffield City Boundary, Sheffield Air Management Zone Boundary, Sheffield Clean Air Zone Boundary.

Day 3

I started work on a website. This was a prototype site meant to be a public facing component in our Policy idea. Essentially, it would be used to explain each stage and also host surveys, acting as a single point of contact.

I used Tailwind, MapLibre GL JS and the Ordance Survey API for the demo site.

Day 4

I plotted the location of the Sheffield diffusion tubes and indicated differently those inside and outside the Clean Air Zone using Pandas and Geopandas.

I also looked into Deprivation based inequality in NOx emissions in England (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3VA00054K).

Using Jupyter and Pandas I calculated the Annual and 24hr average for Particulate Matter (2.5 and 10) and Nitrogen Dioxide across Sheffield so that it could be compared to the WHO and UK targets.

At the end of this project I had created:

• A graph of $NO_2$ levels in Sheffield 2003-2024
• A graph of $NO_2$ levels in Sheffield inside and outside the CAZ 2003-2004
• A plot of the Diffusion tubes and the Clean Air Zone
• Yearly and 24h Averages for $NO_2$ $PM_{10}$ $PM_{2.5}$
• Hourly Pollutant levels for 01-01-2024 and 08-01-2024 (fun fact, I initially plotted the 1st of January and was confused about the abnormal looking patterns before remembering it was New Years, so not representative of an average day with respect to traffic levels)
• A project webpage

Day 5

This day was mostly team presentations followed by an awards ceremony. Unfortunately we did not win, however it was still a great opportunity to present our ideas.

Conclusion

This project really helped to apply teamworking skills as well as learning new technical skills, specifically data analysis skills. As a Computer Science student I don’t often do much work with real world data so it was a great opportunity to use python in a different way than usual.

If you want to see our solution (which includes a video of the project site), here are our slides.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

Thank you to YHODA for running the event and thank you to SYSC for sponsoring the event.

Thank you to Prof. Vania Sena, Guifre Balleste Santacana, Stan Naneva, Jess Thomas and Simon Archer.

Thank you to YPIP, University of Sheffield and UKRI.

Thank you to my team: Madhumitha Rajendran, Shola Enwonwu, Siwan Ellis and Willow McIntyre.