Developing best practices for air quality sensor deployments through testing

Abstract

Lower cost air quality sensors have the potential to provide air pollution information at higher spatial resolutions than traditional monitoring. Such information could be used to evaluate project and planning impacts plus disparities in air pollution health impacts across populations. However, lower cost air quality sensors have technical limitations, hardware sustainability considerations, and resource issues associated with deploying and managing a network in the public right of way. To help improve understanding about the uses and limitations, the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability tested three types of low cost air quality sensor devices across various field and lab deployments in collaboration. The project supported multi-disciplinary partnership development between the City, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Portland State University (PSU) researchers, Green Electronics Council (GEC) and multiple private sector partners. This paper details findings about sensor performance in various deployment configurations. Results highlight challenges and recommendations that can be used to improve interoperability for air quality sensor networks. Findings about maintenance planning and sensor sustainability to minimize electronics waste are also discussed. Through this testing design, it was established that lower cost air quality sensors are capable of measuring local roadside pollution signals in addition to urban background pollution. Establishing this pattern is key to using sensors to support additional planning and assessment questions.