title: Field assessment of the Village Green Project: an autonomous community air quality monitoring system.
abstract: Continuous, long-term, and time-resolved measurement of outdoor air pollution has been limited by logistical hurdles and resource constraints. Measuring air pollution in more places is desired to address community concerns regarding local air quality impacts related to proximate sources, to provide data in areas lacking regional air monitoring altogether, or to support environmental awareness and education. This study integrated commercially available technologies to create the Village Green Project (VGP), a durable, solar-powered air monitoring park bench that measures real-time ozone, PM2.5, and meteorological parameters. The data are wirelessly transmitted via cellular modem to a server, where automated quality checks take place before data are provided to the public nearly instantaneously. Over 5500 h of data were successfully collected during the first ten months of pilot testing in Durham, North Carolina, with about 13 days (5.5%) of downtime because of low battery power. Additional data loss (4-14% depending on the measurement) was caused by infrequent wireless communication interruptions and instrument maintenance. The 94.5% operational time via solar power was within 1.5% of engineering calculations using historical solar data for the location. The performance of the VGP was evaluated by comparing the data to nearby air monitoring stations operating federal equivalent methods (FEM), which exhibited good agreement with the nearest benchmark FEMs for hourly ozone (r(2) = 0.79) and PM2.5 (r(2) = 0.76).
authors.affiliation: †U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina 27711, United States.|‡Student Services Contractor, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, United States.
authors.forename: Wan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jiao
authors.affiliation: †U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina 27711, United States.
authors.forename: Gayle S W
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Hagler
authors.affiliation: †U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina 27711, United States.
authors.forename: Ronald W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.affiliation: §ARCADIS U.S., Inc., Durham, North Carolina 27713, United States.
authors.forename: Robert N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Sharpe
authors.affiliation: ∥U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina 27711, United States.
authors.forename: Lewis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Weinstock
authors.affiliation: ∥U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Research Triangle Park, Durham, North Carolina 27711, United States.
authors.forename: Joann
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rice
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009657:North Carolina; D010126:Ozone / Q000032:analysis; D059015:Wireless Technology
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D010126:Ozone