Engaging Citizen Scientists and Low-Cost Sensors to Understand Local Air Quality

Fine particles (PM_2.5) have been linked to serious health effects. Satellite-based products provide a measure of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and estimates of surface PM_2.5 but are subject to uncertainties. Recent advances in low-cost sensor technology and measurements provide an opportunity to leverage such sensors to provide detailed data on spatial gradients at high temporal resolution. In this work, we leverage citizen scientists and the advancement in low-cost sensor technology to study the utility of such sensor data for integration with satellite data.

In this presentation, we will discuss our experience engaging citizen scientists to deploy and use low-cost sensors to generate data for the research questions of interest. We will share our plans and ongoing work for the just-started implementation phase of the project where we will be expanding sensor network to 3 different regions on a larger scale. We will touch upon our findings and lessons learned from a prototype field deployment of PM_2.5 sensors using citizen scientists in Southern California, and how we will build upon those lessons in this implementation phase to enable broader and active citizen scientist participation and engagement.