Abstract Number: 192 Working Group: Low-Cost and Portable Sensors
Abstract Severe fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution along with higher mortality risk raised unprecedented public awareness in China. To realize Chinese government’s urgent vision of improving air quality, more refined actions are needed. However, the spatial resolution of current air quality monitoring system is not enough to support that. The emergence of low-cost, compact PM sensors enables measurement at high spatial resolution that can provide new opportunities to couple with the existing monitoring system and to improve air quality management capability. We established a monitoring network with 161 packaged low-cost sensor platforms in Jining, a city in eastern China and with a population of ~3 million. Previously, there were only 8 standard air quality monitoring stations in Jining. The sensor network together with the standard stations helps the government both at the city level and at the township level to implement air quality management strategies. Based on the network, ranking among township can be established and be used to motivate and to guide air pollution control at the township level.
Through laboratory and field evaluation of current available PM2.5 sensors, the PM sensor from Oneair was selected and integrated into a platform together with other sensors for gaseous species. Depending on the availability, either utility power or solar panel was used to power the platform. Data measured by the platform (including the GPS information and meteorology parameters) are transferred to the main database server through the GPRS wireless network. In this talk, data from Nov. 2016 to Feb. 2017 were taken as an example. Through comparisons with standard stations and adjacent platforms, we conclude that the network was running in good condition and the data quality are good. Based these data, air quality was assessed at the township level by ranking them from three perspectives, i.e., ambient PM2.5 concentration, population-weighted PM2.5 concentration, and PM2.5 concentrations of all the platforms. Population-weighted PM2.5 helps to take exposure into consideration. The rank among all the platforms helps to find out potential emission sources.