Home › Resources › Making the Invisible Visible: A guide for mapping hyperlocal air pollution to drive clean air action

Making the Invisible Visible: A guide for mapping hyperlocal air pollution to drive clean air action

Description

Guide that provides advice for cities, counties, and other local organizations interested in using hyperlocal air quality data to drive tailored solutions for air pollution.

Questions this resource can help answer

How can I design an effective hyperlocal monitoring network to inform air quality management decisions in my city?

What are the technologies available for measuring air quality at the community scale?

How do I manage and analyze data from hyperlocal air quality sensor networks?

How do I use this resource?

This guidance document provides several types of information needed to determine the types of hyperlocal monitoring needed to understand air quality exposures. Part 1 includes basic information on air quality and an overview of different types of technologies and tools for measuring and mapping local air pollution. Part 2 walks through step by step how to design and implement a hyperlocal monitoring network. Part 2 also provides guidance on how to manage and analyze monitoring data. Part 3 provides guidance on how to use measured air pollution data to design air quality solutions, and how to engage community members around the data. Part 3 also provides guidance on how to evaluate program success.

Resource information

Resource owner

Non-governmental organization

Format

Document

Backup URL

Update Frequency

Irregularly

Geographic Coverage

county, Local (city, municipality), United States

Technical specifications

Methodology

Sectors

Other

Other Specifications

Related resources

Model

GEOS-Chem

GEOS-Chem is an open?source global 3?D chemical transport model used to simulate atmospheric composition, including gases and aerosols, and their chemistry, transport, and deposition. The website provides documentation, installation and run instructions, tutorials, model version information, input datasets, and links to the user community and developer resources. Researchers use it to run simulations for air quality, climate, and biogeochemical cycling studies, and to contribute improvements back to the shared codebase.

Model

Hazardous Air Pollutant Exposure Model (HAPEM)

EPA’s HAPEM (Hazardous Air Pollutant Exposure Model) is a human exposure model that estimates how people are exposed to outdoor-origin hazardous air pollutants as they move through different microenvironments (home, work, in transit, outdoors). Using ambient concentration inputs, population and activity-pattern data, and microenvironmental factors (e.g., infiltration indoors), HAPEM produces distributions of exposure for various population groups and is used in national? and regional?scale risk assessments such as the National Air Toxics Assessment.

AnalysisModelTool

Human Exposure Model (HEM)

EPA’s Human Exposure Model (HEM) is a probabilistic exposure assessment tool used to estimate how people are exposed to contaminants (often air pollutants, but not limited to them) through different pathways and microenvironments. It is designed to support human health risk assessments by translating environmental concentrations into population exposure distributions for specific pollutants, locations, and demographic groups. HEM uses information on contaminant levels, population characteristics, and time–activity patterns to produce quantitative estimates of average and high-end exposures suitable for regulatory analyses and comparative policy evaluations.

MapTool

Google Air Quality

Main site for Google air quality products, including hyper local mapping, forecasts, history, and heatmaps. Requires an account and product purchase.

Case study

Community Air Quality

Website providing case studies and resources related to screening assessments of community air quality concerns.

DatabaseMapReportTool

NYC Environment and Health Data Portal

Web tool providing information on neighborhood built environment, asthma, climate, housing, and outdoor air, intended to show how environments affect health.