A fine-scale, multi-stakeholder, multi-pollutant ambient monitoring network for understanding urban metabolism and population exposure

Abstract

Modern air quality sensors are facilitating the deployment and operation of spatially dense ambient monitoring networks at increasingly fine scales. Estimates and observations from such networks are uniquely valuable to scientists and regulators concerned with improving atmospheric models, emission inventories, and forecasting tools. They are also of value to local and regional health and planning professionals concerned with population exposures, healthy infill development, screening of candidate sites for regulatory monitoring, and timely verification of policy interventions. In the San Francisco Bay Area, regional policies targeting climate change mitigation through sustainable land use and transportation initiatives motivate the combined monitoring of greenhouse gas and traffic-related criteria air pollutants at fine scale. Within this context, we report on the BEACON network, a lattice of 30 fixed-site monitoring stations located approximately 2 km apart in Berkeley and Oakland, California. Individually, measurements from BEACON monitors are of moderate quality, but when taken together can produce an accurate, highly resolved picture of real-time atmospheric concentrations. Initial work has focused on sampling CO2 concentrations using laboratory-calibrated, research-grade instruments, as well as collecting and validating measurements from NO2, O3, and CO sensors. Validated BEACON data is freely available to all stakeholders, including the general public, through a website that offers tools for visualizing, browsing, and downloading data (http://beacon.berkeley.edu). BEACON offers lessons in leveraging community partnerships for staging and operating such a fine-scale network, selecting sensors for particular purposes, and conducting outreach and curriculum development with educators, community groups, and citizen scientists. These lessons may be relevant to the design and deployment of next-generation air monitoring infrastructure in additional locales.