Air Quality Mapping in Sacramento with a Research-Grade Mobile Platform

Air pollution levels in communities can vary widely from street to street. Mobile air monitoring has emerged as an effective solution to better understand these spatial patterns of air pollution. Such monitoring can reveal details about urban air pollution at finer resolutions that are not practical with traditional stationary monitoring.</p>

In a project funded by SMAQMD and the City of Sacramento, Sonoma Technology collaborated with the University of California, Davis, and Entanglement Technologies to design an innovative mobile air monitoring study to map neighborhood-scale air pollution levels across several disproportionately impacted communities in Sacramento.</p>

The project team deployed a mobile monitoring platform equipped with research- and regulatory-grade instrumentation and collected measurements of criteria air pollutants, air toxics, and climate forcers across nearly 200 miles of community streets from February through April 2023. The project also used advanced statistical analysis to map the typical spatial patterns of air pollution in each community and pinpointed areas with disproportionately higher air pollution impacts from local sources.</p>

Overall, the study demonstrated the application and advantages of mobile monitoring solutions for hyperlocal spatial mapping of air pollutants at neighborhood levels. The study also showcased the utility of regulatory-grade analyzers and advanced research monitoring systems for conducting mobile mapping and stationary monitoring over low-cost sensing approaches.