Abstract
Air quality in urban areas is a very important topic as it closely affects the health of citizens. Recent studies highlight that the exposure to polluted air can increase the incidence of diseases and deteriorate the quality of life. Hence, it is necessary to develop tools for real-time air quality monitoring, so as to allow appropriate and timely decisions. In this paper, we present uSense, a low-cost cooperative monitoring tool that allows knowing, in real-time, the concentrations of polluting gases in various areas of the city. Specifically, users monitor the areas of their interest by deploying low-cost and low-power sensor nodes. In addition, they can share the collected data following a social networking approach. uSense has been tested through an in-field experimentation performed in different areas of a city. The obtained results are in line with those provided by the local environmental control authority and show that uSense can be profitably used for air quality monitoring.
Highlights
Air quality is a major concern for the public health, the environment and, the economy of all the industrialized countries
In this paper, we present uSense, a sensing system for cooperative air quality monitoring in urban areas. uSense relies on small-size low-cost sensor nodes that can be privately installed by citizens inside their properties
Zone B is in the countryside and the sensor node is located near a rural road
Summary
Air quality is a major concern for the public health, the environment and, the economy of all the industrialized countries. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM), and some other organic compounds still represent a serious threat. In such context, the “Air Quality in Europe”. Report—published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) [3] in November 2014—provides a thorough overview of measures and policies adopted at European level to improve the air quality and reduce the impact of air pollution on public health and ecosystems. As shown in [4], poor air quality can, cause ill health and premature deaths, as well as damages to ecosystems, crops, and buildings
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