Journal of Air & Waste Management Association

JA&WMA: Use of low-cost air sensors to augment regulatory networks

Use of low-cost air sensors to augment regulatory networks

Written by:

Ajith Kaduwela, Air Quality Research Center, University of California, Davis & Anthony Wexler, Air Quality Research Center, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis

Published:

March 11, 2021

Letter to the Editor

Dr. Kaduwela and Dr. Wexler wrote a letter to the editors of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association about the incorporation of data from low-cost air quality sensors on current air quality mapping platforms. In the letter they highlighted the 2018 Air Sensors International Conference's efforts to showcase the development of these low-cost sensor and the efforts to discuss the use of data in tangent with regulatory instruments.  Kaduwela and Wexler call attention to the fact these air quality mapping platforms do not differentiate the data input and displayed to the public based on accuracy. Currently there is no platform that conducts quality assurance checks of the data. 

As air quality experts, Kaduwela and Wexler, are advocating for the integration of a uniform metric to categorizing accuracy information on current platforms. 

Low-cost sensors empower the public to better understand their local air quality. But accuracy is a concern which must be kept in mind when interpreting and discerning appropriate uses of the sensor data...

But since these sensors are not certified as regulatory methods, measurements obtained with them must be treated differently than those obtained using FEM/FRM methods.

Read the full letter below...

Download the Letter to the Editor as a PDF

Citation: Ajith Kaduwela & Anthony Wexler (2021): Use of low-cost air sensors to augment regulatory networks, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2021.1895577

Read the full article on JA&WMA