Finding Air Quality Hotspots to Inform Dust Mitigation
Another UVA|ARC team traveled to Utqiaġvik this spring to deploy “BigDot” particulate matter (PM) sensors in areas deemed to be potential or observed hotspots for dust, and therefore, for poor air quality.Eighteen sensors were deployed across the city. A handful were placed along a major coastal road (Stevenson St.), a major inner village roadway (Laura Madison), and the major roadway into the tundra (Cakeeater Rd.). The remainder of the sensors were placed at suspected hotspots where cars and foot traffic intersect (stop signs, roadways with high foot traffic, the airport). Data is collected by the PM sensors at hourly intervals, transmitted from a Notecard Cellular XM device, and pulled into a Datacake data visualization database.
For this task, Environmental Sciences and Data Science PhD student Mirella Shaban was joined by partners from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Fairbanks, Alaska. The goal of the study is to identify locations of high PM air pollution in Utqiaġvik and to quantify the frequency and severity of high PM events:
- How often do they cross U.S. EPA and World Health Organization (WHO) standards for daily exposures?
- What will the data tell us about hourly exposure thresholds (derived from WHO daily exposure thresholds)?
- What can we infer about the risk to community members and especially vulnerable populations based on the frequency, severity, and location of PM exposures?