Portable air sensors are changing the way we see air pollution

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Could air pollution be worse across the street? These are the tools to find out.

Sources:

Graeme Carvlin | Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

Marcel Jones | Associated Resource Council Rec Tech program

 Air sensor lending library | Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

Air sensor toolbox | EPA

“A distributed network of 100 black carbon sensors for 100 days of air quality monitoring in West Oakland, California” | Caubel, et al.

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If you’re curious about your own neighborhood’s air quality, you can also build your own air sensor! We made a video showing how to build a DIY air sensor from a Raspberry Pi computer. You can learn more about the project from Pimoroni as well.

Several studies have made use of similar DIY air sensors, like this study measuring black carbon in Oakland, or this project measuring air pollution around the world. Graeme Carvlin (featured in the video) even built his own network of air sensors to study air pollution in Imperial County in Southern California.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Portable air sensors are changing the way we see air pollution on Sep 10, 2019.