Abstract Number: 1134 Working Group: Low-Cost and Portable Sensors
Abstract In Taiwan, how to effectively identify the pollution source location is an essential issue, especially when the residential and industrial areas are in close proximity. It requires a widespread monitoring network that was difficult to build in terms of the economic and technical feasibility until low-cost and portable air quality sensors and the Internet of things (IoT) emerge recently. TEPA (Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration) is dedicated to provide our citizens high-quality living environment and thus propose the concept of environmental IoT (EIoT) plan to assist the source identification and then the environmental enforcement. For testing the concept, TEPA implemented a small-scale EIoT project in a seaside industrial area and then learned the lessons of the sensor limitation in extreme environment, the local coordination issues on electricity and land use, maintenance issues, the sensor data processing, the appropriate deployment density setting, and the collaboration with law enforcement department. By the experience of the EIoT project, TEPA believed the EIoT is practicable and valuable and subsequently promoted a national EIoT plan involving more than 10,000 air quality sensors deployed island wide, incorporating the approaches of public and private sectors. TEPA also developed a sensor testing system by comparing the performance between the tested sensor and the high-quality monitoring station to confirm the sensor usability. TEPA anticipates that the innovative EIoT can enhance the performance of environmental enforcement to avoid illegal emission and provide the nearby environmental information for local habitants.