EPA Grantees Advance Use and Applications of Air Monitoring Sensors to Protect Public Health
Published August 2, 2022
Newly developed low-cost, portable air quality sensors can quickly detect and measure indoor and outdoor air pollutants. The readings from these sensors can display exposure levels of particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and other air pollutants, and provide information to help determine the likely pollution sources. However, there is a need for research on how to appropriately select, use and maintain these sensors in communities that are most impacted by air pollution exposure and ensure community members can effectively use and interpret the sensors data.
EPA grantees from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD), in collaboration with their co-investigators at Sonoma Technology, Inc., and University of California - Los Angeles, developed a toolkit to help California communities select, use, and maintain low-cost air sensors and interpret the collected data.
To create the toolkit, researchers began by conducting testing to characterize the performance of commercially available sensors and identify candidates for field deployment. Researchers then partnered with 14 California communities to deploy sensors, specifically to those who are underserved and located near specific sources of air pollution such as industries and major roadways. Through this collaborative effort, the research team deployed nearly 400 air quality sensors. After analyzing and interpreting the collected data, the group hosted public meetings and outreach activities to further educate the public and expand knowledge about the capabilities, limitations, and applications of commercially available sensors.
“Community engagement is key to environmental and policy change. We have worked closely with community members to form the toolkit as we were listening and taking notes while using all feedback to guide the development of the project,” said Vasileios Papapostolou, project lead of the STAR grant. “I am very grateful to provide an influential product while giving back to the community.”
The toolkit was released in September 2021 and includes a guidebook titled “Community in Action: A Comprehensive Guidebook on Air Quality Sensors”, as well as training videos, data analysis and visualization tools, and other resources. To share collected data from community air sensors, the publicly available AirSensor & DataViewer tool provides a user-friendly method to analyze and visualize information to engage with the public. As part of their grant, the team also completed three publications: 1) an article discussing the toolkit’s development, 2) a report on the data results from a single community, and 3) another finding on the long-term evaluations of the performance of the sensors deployed during the project. Results were shared at public outreach events and included in publicly available training videos to increase awareness among communities and researchers. In the future, the group hopes to expand toolkit capabilities by translating the guidebook to other languages, improving troubleshooting of existing sensors, and including materials on additional sensors to advance the tool’s ability to measure other types of air pollutants.
“Communities and citizen science play a large role in every decision moving forward,” said Andrea Polidori, principal investigator of the STAR grant project. “We are ahead of the curve with developing useful tools to establish strong community relationships and the ability to give the community the power they need to help us make the right decisions.”
The research team has engaged, educated, and empowered communities to understand the benefits of using low-cost air sensors to track air quality. Along with developing the comprehensive toolkit, researchers have advanced strategies for future sensor deployment to larger populations and provided a resource for other community engagement projects. By allocating sensors toward communities that are underserved and overburdened, government organizations can better understand air quality issues at the community level and influence policymakers to make necessary decisions to protect the public from the impacts of air pollution.
The project was funded by the Air Pollution Monitoring for Communities award through EPA’s STAR competitive research grant program. EPA awarded grants to six organizations to work with local communities to explore how scientific data from low-cost air quality sensor technology can be effectively gathered and used by communities to learn about local air quality and limit personal exposure to harmful air pollutants.