Abstract
An effective micro-level air quality management plan requires high-resolution monitoring of pollutants. India has already developed a vast network of air quality monitoring stations, both manual and real time, located primarily in urban areas, including megacities. The air quality monitoring network consists of conventional manual stations and real time Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) which comprise state-of-the-art analysers and instruments. India is currently in the early stages of developing and adopting economical portable sensor (EPS) in air quality monitoring systems. Protocols need to be established for field calibration and testing. The present research work is an attempt to develop a performance-based assessment framework for the selection of EPS for air quality monitoring. The two-stage selection protocol includes a review of the factory calibration data and a comparison of EPS data with a reference monitor, i.e. a portable calibrated monitor and a CAAQMS. Methods deployed include calculation of central tendency, dispersion around a central value, calculation of statistical parameters for data comparison, and plotting pollution rose and diurnal profile (peak and non-peak pollution measurement). Four commercially available EPS were tested blind, out of which, data from EPS 2 (S2) and EPS 3 (S3) were closer to reference stations at both locations. The selection was made by evaluating monitoring results, physical features, measurement range, and frequency along with examining capital cost. This proposed approach can be used to increase the usability of EPS in the development of micro-level air quality management strategies, other than regulatory compliance. For regulatory compliance, additional research is needed, including field calibration and evaluating EPS performance through additional variables. This proposed framework may be used as starting point, for such experiments, in order to develop confidence in the use of EPS.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Authors are acknowledging the Central Pollution Control Board for using air quality data of their station (available online in public domain) located at the Delhi Technological University (DTU) campus. The authors are also thankful to Dr Rajeev Mishra and his students at DTU for their logistical support during the monitoring period.
Funding
The present research work is part of the CSIR NEERI’s ongoing project, financially supported by the Environment Defense Fund, NY, USA. The members of EDF are also the authors of this manuscript.
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Nidhi Shukla: writing—original draft, monitoring, and data analysis, Sunil Gulia: conceptualization, methodology, editing of the draft version, supervision. Prachi Goyal: critical review and corrections. Swagata Dey: critical review and monitoring support. Parthaa Bosu: review and supervision. S.K. Goyal: critical review, visualisation, and supervision.
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Shukla, N., Gulia, S., Goyal, P. et al. Performance-based protocol for selection of economical portable sensor for air quality measurement. Environ Monit Assess 195, 845 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11438-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11438-9