Global Clean Air

Four ways air quality technology can improve public health in Latin America and around the world

By Maia Draper / Published: December 22, 2022

As countries around the world work to develop strategies to improve air quality and achieve climate goals, innovations in monitoring technology and data analysis are opening up new avenues to reduce air pollution and protect our health.

In Latin America, policymakers and other key stakeholders from 15 countries attended a recent workshop co-hosted by Environmental Defense Fund and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Latin America and Caribbean office and discussed how a regional partnership approach to improve air quality, protect global health and advance climate goals can harness the power of new technologies and analytics to leapfrog existing barriers to advancing clean air. By integrating insights from new data-driven tools, policymakers in Latin America and around the world can more effectively use limited resources to shape policies that provide the greatest air quality and health benefits.

Here are four ways technology and data innovation can advance clean air solutions:

Locate pollution sources

Identifying air pollution sources—where it’s coming from, who’s responsible—is a critical component of air quality management. But emissions inventories and traditional models have limited ability to help us pinpoint the likely sources of local pollution when source information is lacking.

One resource to address this uncertainty is Air Tracker, an online tool developed by EDF and partners that uses real-time meteorological models and available air quality data to help users locate likely sources of local pollution.

Air Tracker has the potential to work even in locations without comprehensive air pollution data, although additional data sources—from low-cost sensors, weather data and more—improve the tool’s accuracy and ability to better pinpoint pollution hotspots.

Evaluate health impacts

Satellite data is another game-changing technology that enables us to better understand the magnitude and distribution of air pollution’s health impacts at an unprecedented scale. A recent study by researchers at George Washington University used satellite data and hyperlocal modeling to estimate that nearly 2 million new pediatric asthma cases can be attributed to air pollution in 13,000 cities around the world.

EDF used this analysis to develop maps that visualize the proportion of pediatric asthma cases attributable to air pollution in major U.S. cities.

This study and others like it open up new opportunities to find previously invisible hotspots of air pollution—and to develop policies to protect the health of people who are first and worst affected by air pollution.

Improve compliance with air quality rules

Actionable data on air quality is critical for enforcement of health-protective air quality regulations. In Houston, Texas, more than 600 industrial facilities along the Houston Ship Channel sit in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. While these facilities are subject to federal and state regulations, permit violations and industrial accidents are common, and enforcement from state regulators has historically been lax.

New data insights and technologies can support local governments in proactively identifying the most high-risk facilities and target monitoring and enforcement efforts there.

EDF worked with Houston-area officials to develop a Facility Risk Ranking tool, which compiles multiple data sources to identify and rank the most “high-risk” facilities. Local staff used this tool to prioritize locations for mobile monitoring with a specialized air toxics instrument around those facilities, identifying hotspots of pollutants and sending investigators to inspect likely sources.

Evaluate policy strategies

Finally, new approaches to air quality monitoring and data analysis open exciting possibilities for improving how we evaluate the effectiveness of policy strategies – both before and after implementation.

One approach to evaluate policies is to use “hyperlocal” or neighborhood-level monitoring to track changes in air quality. In the Breathe London Pilot Project, EDF partnered with the Greater London Authority to deploy a network of low-cost monitors alongside mobile monitoring. We used this data to evaluate air quality benefits from London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which established fees for high-polluting vehicles to drive in central London, and developed a guide of best practices for other regions looking to integrate this kind of data analysis into policy evaluations.

Combining tools to strengthen compliance with clean air laws

All of these innovative approaches help us to better understand air quality challenges and develop effective policies to address them. By leveraging new sources of air quality data alongside traditional regulatory approaches, we can enhance policy and enforcement efforts with hard evidence and allocate resources for the highest impact solutions.

A more sophisticated understanding of air can also help us to document improvements to air quality that are associated with climate policies – a priority for many countries as they work toward fulfilling international climate commitments. 

Also posted in Climate, Environmental Justice, Mexico, Monitoring, Science / Comments are closed

Environmental justice groups bring Air Tracker to cities in Alabama and California

By Alex Franco / Published: December 12, 2022

EDF’s Air Tracker pollution monitoring tool is now live in two new cities—Birmingham, AL, and Vallejo, CA—as local groups ramp up efforts to understand how industrial activity impacts community air quality and engage both the public and area regulators.

Who’s using it: GASP, also known as the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution, is working to learn more about the impacts of local steel, coke and cement facilities to inform public comments on Clean Air Act Title V permit renewals for these facilities. They also want to use the tool to alert regulators and inspectors of acute pollution events.

In Vallejo, the Citizen Air Monitoring Network (VCAMN) is actively monitoring particulate matter and wants to use Air Tracker to identify potential pollution sources. The local community is surrounded by a Phillips 66 refinery, NuStar Energy tank farm, Selby toxic slag site and the I-80 interstate highway. Multiple heavy and medium industrial sites—including a wastewater treatment plant, a quarry, a concrete recycling plant and a dry dock for ship maintenance and repair—also reside within the city boundaries.

“The Air Tracker tool from EDF is an incredible resource for small, local groups like GASP,” said GASP Executive Director Michael Hansen. “We can use it to gather information and form testable hypotheses about air quality issues in the communities we serve. We’re so grateful for the scientists who created the Air Tracker and look forward to using it in our advocacy work.”

Why it matters: We designed Air Tracker in part to help local communities learn about the air they’re breathing and hope to engage with more groups like these before bringing Air Tracker to new areas.

Go deeper: Learn more about how Air Tracker works, read the blog post about its development or watch a recent Q&A with the team behind it.

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

EDF joins global organizations calling on UNFCCC to strengthen action on short-lived climate pollutants to achieve climate goals

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: November 4, 2022

This blog is co-authored by Sergio Sanchez, Global Clean Air Policy Director and Julia Gohlke, Lead Senior Scientist, Climate & Health

Environmental Defense Fund supports the World Health Organization (WHO), The World Bank Group, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which have appealed to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Parties to expand the scope of pollutants under consideration and the methodology for Short-Lived Climate Pollutant (SLCP) assessment, and to strengthen the focus on sector approaches to climate action.”

WHO issued an October 31, 2022 policy brief about SLCPs (black carbon, methane,. tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons), along with a group of other major international development organizations. The policy brief urges UNFCCC delegates gathering at COP 27 (November 6-18) to strengthen ambition, improve data reporting and encourage integrated health assessments of air pollution in each country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC). Furthermore, it calls for the full incorporation of SLCPs as an explicit agenda item under the UNFCCC.

Credit: Climate & Clean Air Coalition

Fast action to reduce SLCPs will result in quick benefits for climate change and for human health. SLCPs have historically not been comprehensively included in country emissions inventories and NDC mitigation pledges. Some countries, such as Mexico, have included SLCPs in their NDC, pledging to reduce black carbon by 51% by 2030. Through recognition of the immediate health gains realized with SLCP reductions, climate action ambitions can be strengthened at COP27.

Also posted in Climate, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science / Comments are closed

Meet Jim Morris, Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, Public Health Watch

By lambrogi / Published: July 8, 2022

Jim Morris is the Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Public Health Watch, a nonpartisan investigative news site focused on the prevention of illness, injury and premature death. Public Health Watch’s coverage of health inequities, environmental injustice and the impact of pollution on communities includes this in-depth look at toxic air pollution in Harris County, Texas.

How did you first get interested in public health?

I got into journalism in 1978, and I became interested in the petrochemical industry while working in Galveston, Texas, near the chemical plants and refineries along the Houston Ship Channel. I spent nine years as an investigative projects reporter with the Houston Chronicle in the 1990s, and that’s where I really decided that this should be the focus of my career: toxic exposures in the workplace and communities.

I felt like most journalists weren’t paying attention to these issues. When something blew up, of course, that was front-page news. But the rest of the time, workers were dying of cancer, community members were dying prematurely, kids had asthma, and nobody was paying attention. People would say, “That’s just the way it is.” I never thought that should be the way it is. Laws are supposed to protect workers and the public.

You launched Public Health Watch last summer, and your series on air pollution in Texas, and specifically this feature on the fight to hold polluters accountable in Harris County, tells a powerful story about the people exposed to the health harms of air pollution. What are you hoping to accomplish with this site?

There are other nonprofit news outlets that are great at what they do, but we want to go much deeper. We’re not going to run away from a 10,000-word story if we think that’s what it takes to get someone engaged in a topic. Especially for something like air pollution–we’re in a good position to connect the dots and go deeper.

In the Harris County piece, we connected voter suppression with pollution control, when most wouldn’t necessarily make that connection. The ability to choose your local elected officials really can have an impact on things like environmental enforcement. It’s a cliché, but it’s about trying to go much deeper than the usual “this happened yesterday.”

We’re going to stay focused on this topic of Texas air pollution at least for the rest of this year. We have four to six substantial investigative pieces in the works. This doesn’t include shorter, newsier pieces.

What role can investigative journalism play in bringing about change for communities most impacted by air pollution?

Well, with this story, we don’t know yet. But just looking at social media–the story was being shared and liked by people we had never heard of before. People from all over the world. It was pretty remarkable and indicated to us that we had struck a nerve or done something beyond the ordinary. And a Texas state representative from Houston said she was “deeply disturbed” by our findings and would propose legislation next year to crack down on polluters.

We’re not expecting miracles here. Rarely do you see immediate impact; I’ve done projects where I’ve found out years later that something I wrote led to a policy change. The more of these stories we do, however, the greater the chances of impact.

What gives you hope?

People like [Harris County Attorney] Christian Menefee and [Harris County Judge] Lina Hidalgo–young elected officials of color who genuinely care about the people in fenceline communities. They’re doing what they can to crack down on chronic air pollution. Those two are genuinely inspiring. If you get enough people like them holding local and, ultimately, state office, that’s when you’ll see real change.

Also posted in Environmental Justice, Health, Houston, 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, Monitoring, USA / 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, Monitoring, Science / Comments are closed

Better data is critical to address health disparities in air pollution’s impacts

By EDF Web Team / Published: March 31, 2021

Ananya Roy, Senior Health Scientist, and Maria Harris, Environmental Epidemiologist

The last several months have seen a wave of momentum in policies seeking toward advance environmental justice and equity through better data collection and mapping. In his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive order to initiate the development of a screening and mapping tool to identify disadvantaged communities with the goal of informing equitable decision making. And legislation introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate would launch a similar effort. This focus on data and mapping is critical.

Also posted in Environmental Justice, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage, Oakland, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science / Comments are closed

Vital global initiative will accelerate clean air solutions in cities

By Sarah Vogel / Published: March 19, 2021

Everybody deserves the right to breathe clean air. Yet air pollution is choking cities and communities around the world – a staggering 9 in 10 people breathe unhealthy air.

City leaders need to urgently identify and accelerate solutions across the world. That’s why the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is launching a bold initiative – called Clean Air Catalyst – to help cities around the world reduce air pollution by advancing solutions that protect health, promote equitable prosperity and tackle the climate crisis. Through a global consortium of organizations led by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Clean Air Catalyst will begin in two pilot cities: Indore, India, and Jakarta, Indonesia. In Jakarta, WRI Indonesia is the implementing organization.

To mark the initiative’s official launch, hundreds of people from around the world attended a virtual conversation on clean air, health and climate solutions with U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and USAID’s Karl Fickenscher, as well as representatives from partners and the pilot cities. Here’s what you need to know.

Also posted in Climate, Concerned Citizen, Energy, Environmental Justice, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage / Comments are closed

Global Clean Air Blog: How increasing data transparency can help reduce pollution

By Millie Chu Baird / Published: February 1, 2021

By Millie Chu Baird, Associate Vice President, Office of the Chief Scientist

Harnessing data for good has been at the heart of EDF science for decades. Whether we’re identifying gas leaks underground or methane leaks from the air, we want to use the data we collect and analyze to help the planet and the people who inhabit it. Sometimes, that means turning it over to another organization that can do even more with it.

OpenAQ now features both reference-grade and low-cost sensor data.

One of the keys to fighting air pollution inequity is data transparency—ensuring that as wide a range of people as possible have access to as much of it as possible.

When EDF embarked on our air pollution work several years ago, we partnered with Google, whose Street View Cars drove 23,000 kilometers in Oakland, CA, collecting 3 million unique measurements of black carbon (BC) particles, nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). This was an astounding dataset at the time, and it took careful analysis and thoughtful work with critical community partners, who helped us better understand the hot spots the data revealed.

Those research partners—the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project—showed us just how critical getting data into the hands of a robust, engaged community is to turning insights into the kind of action that will improve air pollution, which kills an estimated 6.5 million people every year. They provided essential local insights to help our scientists interpret the data and draw relevant conclusions. This collaboration, built on long-term engagement and trust and a recognition of their role in community organizing in data analysis, was critical to informing policy action.

Taking advantage of multiple types of pollution and health data and a new legal mandate from the state legislature, the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project worked with community members and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to co-create the West Oakland Community Emissions Reduction Plan, turning air pollution data in action.

Merging our data with a robust, community platform

That’s why I’m excited that OpenAQ will be using the datasets we’ve collected and analyzed over the last 5 years. They’ve invested in and continue to build and maintain a robust platform for sharing data from a variety of sources, including government monitors, PurpleAir, HabitatMap and Carnegie Mellon University.

Through workshops in various countries around the world—currently held online—they’ve developed and nurtured a community of researchers and dedicated activists who can access air pollution information in one central location. After all, this air quality sensor revolution is only a revolution if people can see the data. It’s foundational to the ability to take action–whether in West Oakland, California or on the other side of the world.

This data they present isn’t just for air quality scientists. Their dashboards are accessible enough for those with even a casual interest in air pollution to read and understand. For more technical users, OpenAQ provides an API to pull data for analysis.

As momentum grows to tackle the global air pollution crisis, groups like OpenAQ will be instrumental in helping EDF drive clean air action by shining a light on air quality at a scale and scope never seen before. We hope you’ll spend some time on their platforms, explore the data, and share it with your community.

Also posted in Community Organizer, Oakland / 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.

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, Monitoring, Science / Authors: mbaird / Comments are closed