Development and Performance Assessment of a Power-Independent Low-Cost Particulate Monitor for Air Quality Monitoring in the Bronx – New York City

Abstract:

Understanding the spatial and temporal scales at which air quality affects people is critical for maintaining the overall health of a community. This work intends to explore the feasibility of using low-cost instrumentation and hardware to create a more accessible platform for measuring air quality. Based on the trade-off analysis for accuracy and cost, low-cost monitors have proven to be a good alternative for measuring air pollutant concentrations. In collaboration with the New York State Department of Environment Conservation (DEC) at Queens College, NY, low-cost air quality monitors were surveyed and assessed through field colocation and integrated into a cellular data acquisition system. This project explored the feasibility of using stationary low-cost monitoring networks for spatial and temporal estimation of ambient fine particulate concentrations (PM_2.5) in an environmental justice community in New York City –Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, in the Bronx. The study area is located exactly between the three main highways known as the “toxic triangle”. The primary objective was to better understand the community’s exposure to poor air quality coming from the Sheridan expressway where thousands of trucks pass by every day towards the commercial area in Hunts Point. The data from the community-based low-cost stationary monitoring networks were compared to FEM/FRM in the Bronx and the findings land use regression (LUR) analysis of the New York City Community Air Survey (NYCCAS). The Bronx data compared to the LUR NYCCAS data served only as illustration of the opportunity for community-based citizen science projects to compare their data to the findings of the NYC’s air surveillance program. Based on the R-squared value a strong agreement was observed between FEM/FRM and AirBeam2 low-cost monitor. The air quality monitor provided a low-cost alternative to existing systems for air quality monitoring. AirBeam2 illustrated an advantage of low-cost sensor platforms by helping drive down the cost of data acquisition and providing more insights into the air quality network. Due to higher spatial resolution, a more comprehensive analysis of urban environments was made possible through the proposed monitor.