Global Clean Air

Historic investments in air quality monitoring can give communities a voice in clean air solutions

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: September 8, 2022

The United Nations General Assembly recently declared that access to clean air and a healthy environment is a universal human right, but far too many people live in communities overburdened by pollution. Together, new legislation and a historic investment in clean air present a tremendous opportunity to reduce pollution and improve public health in the U.S. And for the first time, communities have an opportunity to direct their tax dollars to local projects that can improve air quality. 

We have hotspots when it comes to air quality – and they matter  

Air pollution can vary across communities–even from block to block–and additional monitoring can shine a light on pollution hotspots. More data is needed to understand where air pollution comes from, who it’s impacting and who’s responsible for it.  

Exposure to air pollution is not equally experienced, and the health harms fall most heavily on Black and Latino communities. The discriminatory practice of redlining, for example, played a role in determining land use throughout cities. Neighborhoods falsely labeled “definitely declining” or “hazardous” in the 1930s then experienced decades of depressed property values, which allowed polluters to move in.  

Air pollution exposure leads to negative health impacts at every stage of life. New satellite analysis shows places where monitoring isn’t reflecting health burdens, and more data is urgently needed to better understand who is being impacted by air pollution.  

New legislation and investments in air quality 

The newly passed Inflation Reduction Act includes some powerful provisions that could deliver cleaner air to communities, as well as strengthen the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.  

The Inflation Reduction Act includes an historic $296m investment in air monitoring including: 

  • $117.5m: grants for monitoring focused on community air toxics from industrial facilities beside fenceline communities
  • $50m: funds to expand multipollutant regulatory monitoring 
  • $3m: grants focused on air quality sensors in low-income and disadvantaged communities
  • $25m: flexible Clean Air Act grants
  • $50m: air pollution monitoring in schools
  • $18m: U.S. Environemental Protection Agency enforcement to crack down on polluters
  • $32.5m: Council on Environmental Quality data collection 

But that’s not all. For the first time, the federal government is welcoming air insights to influence how additional billions in funds are awarded. 

  • $6b in new funding where air monitoring is an eligible activity to ensure funds are prioritized to disadvantaged communities ($3b for Environmental Justice Block Grants and $3b for Neighborhood access and equity grants) 
  • $5.8b for advanced industrials, prioritized in a way that welcomes air and health insights: “projects which would provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people within the area in which the eligible facility is located” 
  • $15b for greenhouse gas reductions, where disadvantaged communities are to be prioritized, creating an opportunity to include health and equity impacts in the forthcoming prioritization
  • $5b for climate pollution reduction grants, where disadvantaged communities are to be prioritized, creating an opportunity to include health and equity impacts in the forthcoming prioritization 
  • $1.15b in additional funding for non-attainment areas ($400m for clean heavy-duty vehicles and $750m for ports) 

There were also three bills recently introduced that, if passed, would support communities and EPA to better understand the air we breathe: 

  • The “Technology Assessment for Air Quality Management Act,” introduced by Senator Markey and Representative McEachin, would require EPA to better enable the development and understanding of air pollution, health and equity insights at the community level.  
  • The “Environmental Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act of 2021,” introduced by Senator Markey and Representative Castor, would direct $100m a year to hyperlocal air quality monitoring. It would enable monitoring of criteria air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants and greenhouses gases at a neighborhood scale in order to identify persistent elevated levels of air pollutants in environmental justice communities.
  • The “Public Health Air Quality Act of 2022,” reintroduced by Representative Blunt Rochester and Senator Duckworth, would strengthen air quality monitoring in communities near industrial sources of pollution, require a rapid expansion of the NAAQS or national ambient air monitoring network and deploy at least 1,000 new air quality sensors in communities. 

Community-centered solutions 

There are billions of dollars available, and it’s critical that state and local leaders design good projects that provide communities with data to better understand what’s in their air and advocate for a healthier environment. Solutions to environmental problems must center the communities that are most gravely damaged by pollution. That means a multi-stakeholder, solutions-oriented public engagement process. 

This unprecedented investment in clean air can give communities a voice in their own local air quality solutions. 

Also posted in Community Organizer, Concerned Citizen, Environmental Justice, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage, Science, USA / Comments are closed

Meet Jennifer Hadayia, Executive Director, Air Alliance Houston

By lambrogi / Published: May 25, 2022

Jennifer Hadayia is the Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution and advance environmental justice. With nearly 25 years of public health experience, Jennifer leads AAH’s mission and strategies, which include equity-centered research, community-based education and collaborative advocacy.  

 

How did you first get interested in the public health impacts of air pollution?  

I have worked in public health for close to 25 years, and most of that time has been at state and local health departments where I oversaw prevention-focused programs on infectious diseases, chronic disease, and even maternal and child health. I spent a lot of time reading and researching and trying to understand how to help people prevent poor health outcomes.  

Even 25 years later, I still remember the day when my eyes were first opened. I was reading a report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which explained that the number of heart attacks in a community could be predicted by the level of PM2.5 in the air. The impact of air quality on public health was mind-blowing! After years of trying to change individual behavior, it was clear that improving environmental conditions could have a far greater impact on people’s health at a population level.  

Tell us about Air Alliance Houston’s work. 

Air Alliance Houston was formed in the late 1980s as a merger between two groups of residents and parents concerned about smog. We’ve undergone some key evolutions and expansions in the last 30 years to embrace a population health perspective and a focus on environmental justice. Today our mission is to reduce the public health impact of air pollution through research, education, and advocacy.  

We run several campaigns on specific air pollution issues and solutions such as problematic air permits, transportation planning that de-prioritizes Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOVs), connecting air pollution to climate action and community-level air monitoring. But it’s our approach to the work that I think makes us unique: 

  • We inform the narrative about public health and air pollution through an environmental justice lens by uplifting community voices and experiences through participatory research and planning.  
  • We work to build community knowledge and power through the diffusion of accurate information about air pollution, its sources, and how environmental decisions are made in Texas. 
  • We create pathways for impacted and overburdened residents to engage in environmental decision-making and become advocates for their health. 

Is there an upcoming project or initiative that Air Alliance Houston is working on that you’re especially excited about? 

Yes! We’re planning to unveil two new initiatives this year that build on our past advocacy successes, so we can scale our impact even further.  

The first is called AirMail, which is an enterprise mapping system that scrubs air permit applications to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for “bad actors” in Houston’s environmental justice neighborhoods. It then maps the facilities to a public web-based platform and notifies impacted residents via postcard. The map and the postcards explain the air quality impact of the permit (for example, a refinery expansion or a new residential concrete batch plant) and provide actions that residents can take, including connecting to our second new initiative, the Environmental Justice Leadership Lab (EJLL).  

The EJLL is a consolidation of the various training and technical assistance options we provide to community members, so they have the tools and knowledge that they need to speak out against a problematic permit or engage in other environmental decision-making.  

Both of these initiatives have been in the “proof-of-concept” phase, requiring extensive manual time and effort. With the automation of AirMail and the consolidation of our training and technical assistance resources under the EJLL-branded umbrella, we will be able to oppose even more polluters and to empower even more residents.  

Why is clean air important to you personally? 

I was born and raised in Houston. My father and grandfather were dock workers at the Port of Houston, surrounded every day by oil refineries, chemical facilities, tankers and trucks. Growing up, I remember that my father never left the house for work without two things: his cowboy boots and his asthma inhaler. He had debilitating asthma his entire life, and he died young, as did my grandfather, after many years of cancer and heart failure. I don’t think either of them or our family ever made the connection between where they worked and were exposed to poor air quality every day and their poor health and early death.  

Knowing what I do now about air quality and health, I have little doubt there was a connection. I’m deeply proud that I now have the opportunity to work to improve health conditions for Ship Channel families like my own, and to do so with the talented and dedicated staff of clean air advocates at AAH.  

Also posted in Environmental Justice, Health, Homepage, Houston, Partners, USA / Comments are closed

Houston may exceed national standards for harmful fine particulate matter, new monitoring shows

By Fern Uennatornwaranggoon / Published: May 4, 2022

Big Gaps in Air Monitoring 

Air quality in the U.S. has improved tremendously over the last 50 years thanks to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, but not all neighborhoods have benefited from these improvements. The law mandated the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and to determine which areas of the country meet the standards and which do not, setting the foundation for air quality management in the U.S. 

Air quality management agencies and EPA rely on data from regulatory monitoring networks that exist across the country. However, these monitoring networks are designed to give region-wide pollution averages, and monitors are often sparsely located. For the 25 largest U.S. urban areas with continuous regulatory monitoring, there are an average of only 2 to 5 monitors per million people. Some of these monitors are intentionally sited away from emissions sources to capture background pollution levels; the trade-off is that they can miss critical pollution hotspots, especially near major sources of pollution. 

This is exactly what happens in Houston, TX. High levels of harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) have for far too long gone undetected. One such area is the Settegast neighborhood, northeast of downtown Houston, where community members have long voiced concern about air pollution from a nearby railyard, concrete batch plants and metal recyclers. Finally, in 2019, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recommended adding a PM2.5 continuous monitor to the Settegast neighborhood at a site on North Wayside Drive to “improve population exposure coverage,” which EPA approved in the same year. At last, the monitor was deployed in May 2021.

Risk of Nonattainment in Houston

Since the deployment, the new monitor has consistently shown some of the highest PM2.5 levels in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) region. The average PM2.5 concentration over the past 11 months exceeds the current annual NAAQS threshold of 12µg/m3, threatening to push the region into nonattainment status for this pollutant. (Table below shows mean concentration = 12.3µg/m3 from May 3, 2021 to March 10, 2022) 

Annual Average PM2.5 Concentrations at Wayside, as of March 20, 2022. Source: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/cgi-bin/compliance/monops/24hr_annual.pl

The review process currently underway at EPA to reexamine the NAAQS for particulate matter is expected to result in stronger, more health-protective thresholds. It is expected that EPA will make the final ruling on PM NAAQS in Spring 2023, which will trigger a designation process for many areas of the country. A more health-protective standard will make it more difficult for the HGB region to remain in attainment unless actions are taken now to reduce emissions.

A nonattainment designation is costly for a region, both in terms of direct costs of pollution controls and the potential larger economic losses from lower business activities and lost investment opportunities. One analysis estimates that exposure to particle pollution in the nine-county metropolitan Houston area contributed to more than 5,000 premature deaths in 2015 and nearly $50 billion in economic damages.

In addition to the annual trend, the Wayside monitor also shows high short-term spikes in PM2.5 concentrations. So far in 2022, the four peak days of PM2.5 concentrations at this monitor are some of the highest in the HGB region, with peak 24-hour concentrations ranging from 22 to 27µg/m3. (See diagram below. Wayside measurements are shown in yellow dots.)

Four Highest 24-Hour PM2.5 Concentrations in 2022 as of March 20, 2022. Source: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/cgi-bin/compliance/monops/pm25_24hr_4highest.pl

Where Is Pollution Coming From?

The Wayside monitor sits ~700ft east of the Union Pacific railyard. Traditionally, railyards and the associated locomotives and drayage truck activity are a major source of particulate matter. Other emission sources adjacent to the site include a metal recycler, a concrete batch plant and several nearby truck yards. Flanked between the railyard and North Wayside Drive is a community that includes a large apartment village, a retirement home, a high school and churches. This railyard is also known to have used creosote to preserve wooden ties, which created an underground contaminated plume that has drifted beneath people’s homes.

EDF and partners are developing a tool that would allow us to investigate the sources of emissions that are measured by regulatory monitors like the one on North Wayside. Early data shows high pollution readings that can be traced to multiple industrial locations in that area. Data also shows that on three of the four highest readings in 2022, the source area is to the west of the monitor around the UP railyard. 

What Should We Do?

It behooves the region to come together now to address this issue before a nonattainment designation is made. EDF and others are reaching out to TCEQ, the Houston-Galveston Area Council, industry groups and community organizations to identify best-management practices that could be deployed to help reduce the elevated PM2.5 emissions.

At the request of EDF and community groups, TCEQ now plans to install a speciation monitor at Wayside to better evaluate the sources on an ongoing basis. While a more thorough analysis is needed to reach any conclusions about potential sources, there are near-term actions that can be taken to protect communities’ health and to prevent Houston from exceeding the NAAQS threshold. 

  • TCEQ should be requiring the railyard, local metal recycling and concrete plants to adopt best management practices. For instance, requiring anti-idling devices be installed on locomotives and upgrading to cleaner engines could significantly reduce emissions at the Union Pacific railyard.
  • Increasing anti-idling enforcement on main truck routes and around truck-attracting facilities can also lower truck emissions in the near-term.
  • TCEQ could also require industrial facilities such as metal recyclers to adopt best practices to minimize both primary and fugitive emissions, including adoption of abatement and control equipment.
  • There is a need and opportunity for broad adoption of zero-emission equipment which is readily available and affordable, as costs have come down significantly in the last few years.  

EDF will continue to facilitate discussions among stakeholders on this issue and support efforts to minimize pollution and help position Houston to meet the current–and future–national air standard to protect people’s health.

 

Also posted in Concerned Citizen, Health, Houston, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science, Texas, USA / Comments are closed

Making the most of sensor data: How tracking performance of lower-cost sensors allows cities to reveal actionable insights about local air pollution

By Dan Peters / Published: February 23, 2022

Lower-cost air quality sensors can be a game changer for cities looking to understand and improve air quality at the neighborhood level. However, issues with accuracy have been a key barrier to their adoption. Our new paper shows how users can make the most of their data by evaluating sensor performance on a continuous basis.

Collocating sensors to track performance

As part of the Breathe London consortium, we installed 100 sensor devices across the city  to measure key pollutants including nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter for more than two years. Lower-cost sensors like the ones we installed are more sensitive than reference-grade instruments to environmental factors like temperature, relative humidity, or even levels of other pollutants. That can make their measurements less reliable in some environments, or even in certain seasons of the year.

To make sure our data was both accurate and useful, the Breathe London consortium developed rigorous quality assurance procedures. For our NO2 dataset, the procedures included multiple methods to calibrate the sensors, as well as applying an algorithm to correct for sensitivity to ozone, which the sensor can mistake for NO2.

While most of our sensors were collecting measurements at new locations across Greater London, we also installed two “test” sensors alongside London reference-grade monitors for most of the project. By tracking when data from these “test” sensors deviated from the more expensive reference instruments, we had an indication of how sensors across our network were performing at different times.

In the left panel, the “test” sensor measurements show a large deviation from the collocated reference monitor (right), indicating a period when the sensor was not performing well.

This approach provided a reality check for our pollution data. If the sensor network reported high NO2 values but the “test” sensors were completely off track from the reference at that time, we could infer that the network result may have been affected by poor sensor performance and adjust accordingly. This kind of ongoing sensor evaluation is important. Without it, users could mistake erroneous sensor data as evidence of major pollution events or local hotspots.

Why performance matters

Our NO2 sensors performed well most of the time, producing data that revealed a variety of actionable insights, including:

  • Times of day and days of week with the highest pollution levels
  • Regional pollution episodes (for example, a multi-day period with high pollution caused by weather conditions)
  • Hotspot detection
  • Impacts of sources on pollution patterns at different locations
  • Long-term trends (for example, seasonal changes or year-over-year improvements)

Improving our understanding of air pollution in cities around the world

While the uncertainties associated with lower-cost sensors may make them unsuitable for some applications, our project demonstrates a way to generate actionable insights from sensors. The Breathe London network’s NO2 data shows that with rigorous quality assurance and ongoing evaluation of sensor performance, cities can utilize lower-cost sensors to better understand local air pollution. That can allow more communities to take advantage of this relatively new technology, even if they do not have the resources to purchase a network of more costly  reference-grade monitors.

Also posted in Academic, London, Science / Comments are closed

Meet Ethan McMahon, Chief of Party, Clean Air Catalyst

By lambrogi / Published: February 1, 2022

Ethan McMahon is the new Chief of Party for the Clean Air Catalyst, a flagship program launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and a global consortium of organizations led by WRI and EDF. He brings 27 years of experience with the U.S. EPA, where he worked with cities and states to build capacity to address climate change and air pollution, and he advocated to make environmental data more accessible.

What first got you interested in environmental science, and what do you find most interesting about this field?
I started my career as a mechanical engineer, doing things such as evaluating alternative refrigerants. Within a few years I learned about the impacts of climate change and I realized that I wanted to apply my analytical skills to issues that make a difference. This work on the Catalyst interests me because it involves so many dimensions. Technology, human health, collaboration–you need all of these ingredients and more to affect change on many environmental issues.

Why is open, publicly available data so crucial for solving environmental problems?
It’s hard to solve environmental issues because the causes and effects are complicated. In order to present a convincing case to decision-makers you need to speak their language, using numbers and sometimes stories. But you can only crunch the numbers if you can get the data, so it’s critical that data collectors make their data accessible and usable. 

If governments collect data for one purpose, it makes sense to get more value out of the data by making it available for other purposes. For example, EPA collects data on air quality for regulatory purposes, but community groups may want to use that same data to understand if their air quality has suddenly shifted to be worse. AirNow is a great example of how EPA makes their data available for non-regulatory purposes.

How can more data on air quality improve people’s lives?
Air quality affects some portions of the public more than others. For example, some people can only afford to live or work where pollution levels are high, such as near power plants, roadways or outdoor waste burning. The Clean Air Catalyst is finding ways to help people in the pilot cities (Jakarta, Indonesia; Indore, India; and soon, a third city). We use data from existing air quality monitors and analyze where the pollution is coming from. Then we increase awareness of the pollution – and ask people what they experience in their daily lives. Then we collect more air quality data to complement the existing monitors. After we analyze a few dimensions – health, climate change and gender – we evaluate which actions provide lasting benefits and work with communities to implement them.

Is there something about air quality monitoring that you’re especially excited about right now?
I’m really excited about people using data to affect change. They’re thinking beyond the accuracy of individual sensors and focusing instead on how they can use data to make decisions. That’s where the true value is, the benefit to health and society. Communities can use data from a few nearby sensors to understand if air quality is getting better or worse. That might be enough information for people to change their habits and protect themselves, for example by not exercising during hours when pollution levels are high.

What are some goals you have for the Clean Air Catalyst program?
I want the Clean Air Catalyst program to help cities improve their air quality in ways that are effective and sustainable. We’re using a lot of innovative methods in our pilot cities so we don’t exactly know which activities will be the most successful. However, we’ll learn from the experience and share the lessons with other cities so they can make progress easier. In parallel, we’re fostering two types of coalitions. First, we’re bringing several sectors together at the local level. Second, we’re connecting global and local experts so they can collaborate about feasible interventions. Follow our progress and feel free to suggest ways to make lasting improvements to air quality.

Learn more about the Clean Air Catalyst program here.

Also posted in Health, Homepage, Partners, Science / Comments are closed

Here’s how community groups can receive funding for air monitoring

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: January 14, 2022

Hyperlocal air monitoring is a powerful new tool for communities that want to take charge of their air and the health consequences of pollution. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made $20 million available for a new community air monitoring grant program, with no cost-sharing needed. EPA is encouraging community-based organizations to apply for the grants.

The impact of community-driven monitoring is impressive and growing. Interest in community monitoring is inspired, in part, by gaps in the current monitoring networks operated by federal and state governments:

  • Pollution can be as much as eight times higher at one end of the block than the other. This variation has major health impacts: Oakland neighborhoods with higher percentages of residents of color experienced double the rate of childhood asthma from traffic-related air pollution (nitrogen dioxide) compared with predominantly white neighborhoods.
  • Many of the monitors capture data only one out of every six days, and a recent study found that companies pollute more when the government isn’t watching.
  • Satellite data shows that millions of people may be breathing air that doesn’t meet the legal minimum standard in the blind spots around federal regulatory monitors.

Hyperlocal air quality monitors can demonstrate how air quality levels can vary block by block.

Communities are applying local data to a variety of exciting uses. They are securing new regulatory monitors, achieving funding for pollution reductions, reducing truck traffic into waste transfer stations, challenging permits for warehouses, demanding more transparency for truck-attracting facilities, inspiring student engagement, educating residents about health impacts of air quality, and much more.

The funding

The EPA funds are intended “to support community and local efforts to monitor their own air quality and to promote air quality monitoring partnerships between communities and tribal, state, and local governments.” Grant sizes range from $25,000 to $500,000. Eligible entities are states (including the District of Columbia); local governments; U.S. territories and possessions; Indian tribes; public and private hospitals and laboratories; and other public or private nonprofit organizations. $2 million is set aside for tribal governments, and $2 million is set aside for eligible community-based organizations. Projects must be completed within three years.

Further details can be found here. The application deadline is March 25, 2022.

If you believe more funding can help you strengthen hyperlocal monitoring in your community, below are some resources that might help. This is not an exhaustive discussion of application requirements. Applicants should review the information package.

A few resources:

Here are some tips for completing the grant application.

Also posted in Community Organizer, Environmental Justice, USA / Comments are closed

How the Build Back Better Act will help clear the air

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: November 3, 2021

With the Build Back Better Act, Congress has the opportunity to make an unprecedented investment in public health and the climate, particularly in the reduction of harmful air pollution, which disproportionately harms low-income residents and communities of color. 

While many cities across the country have experienced an overall improvement in air quality, residents in neighborhoods from West Oakland, California to the 5th Ward in Houston must still fight for cleaner air, as heavy truck traffic and industrial pollution continue to seriously impact their health. 

woman on ladder installing small air pollution monitor on telephone poll

Hyperlocal air quality monitors have demonstrated how air quality levels can vary street by street.

Air pollution is not evenly distributed across the places that people live, work, play and worship.  A critical step in better understanding and taking action to reduce these inequities in air pollution impacts is to fill in the many gaps in our national air quality monitoring network. 

Historic investments in air quality monitoring 

This bill would help eliminate air pollution blindspots by providing at least $170 million for direct air quality monitoring, a near doubling of federal investment in such monitoring, which has dropped by 20% in real terms over the past 16 years.

It also allocates $50 million to monitor and reduce air pollution in schools that serve students from low-income communities.

This funding has the opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the health and wellbeing of children, as 1 in 5 of all new childhood asthma cases in the United States are attributable to traffic related air pollution. Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism, accounting for about 14 million absences each school year, or one-third of all school days missed. 

Data-focused investing

The Build Back Better Act also recognizes that historically we have been investing in activities that cause or mitigate pollution with our eyes closed. The bill invites, and in some cases requires, insights about local pollution in order to apply for billions in grant funding available to mitigate pollution.  

Specifically, the bill provides $5 Billion in planning and implementation for pollution reduction, and requires applications to include ‘‘(A) the degree to which greenhouse gas air pollution is projected to be reduced [in] low-income and disadvantaged communities.” Communities would be required to demonstrate how they will verify that pollution is decreasing after receiving the grants. 

It also offers $4 Billion to mitigate or remediate the negative impacts of transportation, starting by monitoring or assessments of local and ambient air quality, transportation emissions, and hot spots of extreme heat or elevated air pollution.

These funds could be especially helpful in communities that bear the greatest cumulative burdens of pollution–those adjacent or downwind of major industries, plagued by heavy truck traffic and/or surrounded by highways–the consequence of systemic racism.  

To address this, the bill includes $3 Billion in Environmental And Climate Justice Block Grants, which could include monitoring and mitigation of air pollution, and facilitate engagement of disadvantaged communities in state and federal public processes.

Opportunities to harness new technology

This bill comes at a time when technology and analytics like satellites and low-cost air pollution monitors are making it simpler to track pollution and its impacts. These insights will be critical to the accountability required by the grants and can help transform our understanding of where air pollution comes from, what it does to local health, and who is responsible. 

With this historic funding, we can put the new, innovative methods to use at far greater scale, fueling a better understanding of how air pollution impacts health at the neighborhood level. With richer, more reliable data in hand, policymakers can focus mitigation efforts on areas with the highest burden and turn to solutions that have the potential for the greatest impact, especially for those who are most at risk.

Also posted in Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage / Comments are closed

When it comes to air pollution in Mexico City, data is power.

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: June 23, 2021

Mexico City is known around the world for its culture and rich history, but also for its struggle against air pollution. The information provided by the city’s state-of-the-art air quality monitoring system has been crucial for triggering large-scale actions that have made air quality significantly better over the last thirty years. However, the system also reveals that there are still seasonal spikes of high pollution levels and that air quality improvement trends slowed down during the last decade. In late 2019, new measures were officially announced by the Environmental Commission to reinforce air pollution abatement efforts, one of them focused on technology innovation.

That’s why last September I joined environmental authorities from the Government of Mexico City, the Government of the State of Mexico, the Environmental Commission of the Megalopolis, and the Federal Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources to launch a working group and a collaborative effort aimed to design a methodology for a proof of concept of hyperlocal air quality monitoring system in the Mexican capital that supplement city’s existing monitoring network to catalyze innovative actions for improving air quality.

The importance of hyperlocal monitoring

New international research has shown that air pollution varies at the street level, and can be vastly different for families living only one block away. Cities around the world including London, Beijing, Los Angeles and Medellin have been using microsensors for air quality monitoring and are seeing excellent results. With this data, practitioners are broadening their knowledge and capacities to localize and prioritize key areas where immediate action to mitigate air pollution is required.

Hyperlocal monitoring provides compelling evidence to make the case for air pollution abatement actions and can help inform the design of transformational interventions and investments in key sectors such as in transportation, land use and infrastructure. It also empowers communities to reduce exposure and foster localized solutions to protect public health, reduce health inequities and pursue environmental justice.

A step forward to make the invisible visible

This June, our working group launched a proposed methodology for designing and implementing a community-level air quality monitoring system in a 19 km2 area in the northern part of Mexico City. The study area was explicitly selected for the coexistence of a mix of major pollution sources (industrial facilities, transportation hubs and freight and major passenger roadways) with vulnerable groups exposed to air pollution in multiple hospitals, schools, parks and sport centers, in an area with high population density with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

The methodology has been based on a sound analysis of the local context and conditions in Mexico City, the best available information about hyperlocal technologies, and the current best available practices in this field. In particular, it has been grounded in EDF’s experience with similar projects around the world, incorporating insights from national and international specialists and systematized recommendations and tools for designing hyperlocal air quality monitoring networks to catalyze clean air solutions as outlined in our Making the Invisible Visible: A Guide to Mapping Hyperlocal Air Pollution to Drive Clean Air Actions, and the Breathe London Blueprint guides.

Importantly, the methodology included broad participatory process involving experts in relevant fields from major universities, research centers, civil society organizations, international development institutions and government agencies, which ensured that the proof of concept hyperlocal air quality network design and approach was built upon the solid Mexican experience in comprehensive air quality management.

What’s next

Based on the design of the proof of concept, the Mexico City government will prepare the implementation of the first phase. This consists of a performance assessment of technology options needed to execute the hyperlocal monitoring and development of institutional capacities needed for operation, maintenance, data management, and communications for this monitoring system.

As we look towards the future, it’s critical to have this hyperlocal data to enhance institutional capacities, build community support and forge evidence-based policies that drastically reduce pollution while building more resilient communities. We are excited by the opportunity that this partnership offers in advancing clean air for all.

Also posted in Government Official/Policymaker, Health / Comments are closed

Global Clean Air Blog: How we make pollution more visible

By sakennard / Published: October 27, 2020

Sarah Vogel headshot

By Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., VP Health

When we’re outside, either walking or driving, we’re instinctively looking out for traffic. “Look both ways when you cross the street,” is advice drummed into most children.

But even so, we all have blind spots, and we’re not aware of the present danger polluting cars and trucks bring into our daily lives.

Our new video shows that although air pollution from vehicle exhaust is invisible, its damage to our health is visible and deadly.

 

EDF’s Global Clean Air Initiative has spent years researching air pollution in cities around the world. Our pioneering work with Google Earth Outreach, academic, community and government partners in Oakland, Houston and London shows that levels of air pollution vary much more widely than was previously known. In Oakland, we now know that levels of air pollution can vary by up to eight times within one city block. We’ve been working to visualize local pollution and its impacts in order to support targeted policies for cleaner air especially in those communities hardest hit by pollution. But we also recognized the need to make the experience of pollution more visible and more personal to each one of us as we walk down a city street.

Animated Reality Video based on EDF data

We developed a new animated reality video showing the path that pollution takes from tailpipe into the body. Our video was shot in a location in Houston, Texas, in a residential community that lies adjacent to a major freeway where EDF measured high levels of particulates and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in our 2017-2018 hyperlocal air quality monitoring study, and where the residents experience elevated rates of adult asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, and stroke compared to other neighborhoods in the city.

The video begins with a drone video shot gliding over a busy highway, where the pollution coming from cars and trucks is shown as a half-pipe expanding in 3D. The camera then focuses on a mother and her daughter (both actors) walking down a street–we follow them as they pass trucks and are engulfed in animated pollution particles from exhaust emissions.

Millions of pollution particles in each breath

Pollution is animated as yellow waves of pollution simulating swirling gases, and small, black and yellow animated dots to represent microscopic particles of pollution. According to Adam Nieman of Real World Visuals who worked on this project, a single breath at East Loop South in Houston may contain 18 million particles.1

“The number of particles per breath varies by location and the proximity to different sources of air pollution,” Ramon Alvarez, EDF’s associate chief scientist notes. Regardless of the precise location in an urban area, most people are unaware they can be breathing in millions of pollution particles with each breath.”

Health risks of pollution from transportation

In the video, the animated pollutants travel from tailpipe to trachea, and deep into the young girl’s lungs. EDF epidemiologist Maria Harris shared, “Even short-term exposure to diesel exhaust can cause health impacts, including headaches, dizziness, and eye, nose and throat irritation. Regular exposure to diesel exhaust over time can cause lung cancer, as well as heart disease and other respiratory diseases. Children, whose lungs are still developing, are especially at risk for the respiratory impacts of diesel exposure. Seniors or others with chronic health issues are also at higher risk for respiratory and cardiovascular effects.”

To reduce diesel exposure, Harris suggests trying to limit time walking, biking, or driving on roads with heavy diesel truck or bus traffic, and avoiding areas where diesel trucks or buses idle.

But if we are to build healthy and resilient communities, we need to dramatically cut the emissions from the burning of oil and gas used in transportation, especially cars and trucks.

Benefits for health and climate

In addition to producing harmful air pollution, cars and light trucks account for about 45 percent of all U.S. oil consumption and more than 20 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Globally, climate emissions from large vehicles are on pace to double in the next 30 years. To reverse this trend and transform large vehicles into a critical part of a 100% clean economy, the global fleet must complete a near-total transition to zero-emission trucks and buses.

Electric trucks can help protect driver’s health

Every day, trucks and buses carry the goods, packages and people that keep our economy running. Usually powered by diesel engines, they are among the dirtiest vehicles on the road.

In the video, the actor portraying a delivery driver is exposed to the invisible pollution. Truck drivers often have high occupational exposure to diesel exhaust, which may put them at elevated risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Cabin air filtration systems can help reduce diesel exposure for truck drivers. But ultimately, the best approach for protecting drivers and the communities they drive through is to shift to electric trucks and buses.

With electric vehicles, a zero-emission future that benefits the environment, people and economy is possible.

Take Action for Healthier Solutions

Now that you’ve seen how dangerous air pollution is to our health, we invite you to join the virtual community assembled at GlobalCleanAir.org and help us bring cleaner air to communities around the world. Also, we hope you join the global conversation about public health and clean air on Twitter @EDFCleanAir.

On the site you’ll learn about the health impacts of different air pollutants, case studies on innovative air quality monitoring across the world, tools to implement community-wide strategies where you live, and tips we can all take to clean the air we breathe. We encourage you to visit, and sign up for our monthly newsletter and advocacy action alerts.

Video Script and Sources

Below are facts cited in the video script, listed with links to their sources.
What if invisible pollution became visible?

1. Around the world, nine out of 10 people breathe unhealthy air. (Source: World Health Organization)
2. FACTOID: Exhaust from [diesel and gasoline] cars and trucks contains pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter that can cause heart and lung disease. (Source: US EPA)
3. FACTOID: With every breath, a person on this street will inhale harmful gases and millions of tiny particles. (Source: EDF)
4. FACTOID: Particulates can penetrate deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. Nitrogen dioxide can inflame airways and cause asthma attacks. (Source: American Lung Association)
5. FACTOID: About 4 million children worldwide develop asthma each year from breathing nitrogen dioxide. (Source: George Washington University)
6. Air pollution can cross the placenta and may harm babies’ brain development. (Source: Project TENDR)

Air pollution is invisible, but it damages our health and is sometimes deadly.

Healthier solutions are here.

1.The pollution particle count in the EDF Houston data (near the East Loop South highway) was 36,000 particles per cubic centimeter. The average ‘tidal volume’ of an adult breath is 0.5 litres, which means that a single breath at East Loop South would contain about 18 million pollution particles.

Also posted in Climate, Energy, Health / Comments are closed

Pollution data sharing norms are shifting

By Millie Chu Baird / Published: October 22, 2020

Sharing code in the tech community hasn’t always been considered a virtue. But GitHub, with its easy interface and mammoth user base, has shown how allowing developers to build on one another’s software code can accelerate innovation of new projects and solve bugs with existing applications, all in a transparent, open-source code hosting platform. The air quality data space is ripe for this kind of move.

Opening access to air quality data

Today, in an effort to address this critical need, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is unlocking our new Air Quality Data Commons (AQDC), an open-access data platform where people can share and use data from low-and medium-cost air quality sensors. With the introduction of the AQDC, researchers now have access to more than the 60 million plus data points from EDF and our partners’ air pollution studies in Oakland, Houston and London.

Until recently, few outside of government could afford the expensive, specialized equipment needed to measure air pollution other than well-funded scientists, whose data was typically private until after the publication of a peer-reviewed paper. Even then, when they wanted to share their data with others in the field, they could do so only on an ad-hoc basis with limited infrastructure in place to support such collaboration.

Now, as scientists, cities and residents are taking advantage of new low-cost, high-quality sensors, and the amount of air quality data is growing rapidly, as is the need to store and share it. To unlock the benefits of the data for both scientists and society, it must be open and easily accessible.

The Fourth Wave of Environmental Innovation

Transparency drives innovation

Many of our academic partners have long expressed the desire to share their data — once they’ve had the opportunity to analyze it. However, they’ve lacked a platform that would allow them to do so. Similarly, donors are increasingly demanding that the data gleaned from the projects they’ve funded be available for others to use and explore. By building this community, we hope people will see a benefit to not only accessing available data but sharing their own — they can ask questions of fellow air quality scientists about trends they are seeing and learn from others who may have new was of analyzing existing data.

Our partner Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Program Manager for Google Earth Outreach sees value for cities and Google as well. “By adding to the Air Quality Data Commons, cities can feel confident their investments in air monitoring — whether through a fixed stationary network or city-owned vehicle fleets equipped with sensors — are creating enormous value,” she says. “Validated data shared on the AQDC will contribute to the larger database that Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer will pull from, enabling us to build hyperlocal air quality maps for more cities. By making this data available through a transparent process, the AQDC can accelerate action required to improve air quality.”

We look forward to growing this group of data scientists, companies and cities sharing and analyzing data into a robust community who will contribute to the scientific knowledge base, so we can better understand air pollution problems around the world.

The revolution of smaller, cheaper air pollution sensors has brought us here, but the full potential of this revolution will only be realized when a larger community of scientists, cities, residents and activists use the data we collect to take action and improve local air quality. Join us by downloading our data from the AQDC, or upload your own. We look forward to sharing and learning with you.

We are entering a new era of environmental innovation that is driving better alignment between technology and environmental goals — and results. #FourthWave

This was originally posted on Medium.

Also posted in Academic, Partners, Science / Authors: / Comments are closed