Making Invisible Pollution Visible with Sensor Data
Channel: IntelFreePress
Date: 2013-05-20

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Technology helps people better understand the quality of the air they breathe.
"The problem with air pollution today in America is that most of it is no longer visible," said Mary Peveto, a mother of three, including one daughter with asthma, living in Portland, Ore. "In the 1970s we were dealing with smog and envisioning L.A. and these basins of yellow smog. Today the insidious air pollution problem is largely invisible to the naked eye, so having the technology that can make the invisible visible through data and numbers is important to realizing change because we need awareness before we have change."
Peveto had long been concerned about air pollution, but not until she stumbled across a USA Today report did she fully understand the threat to her daughter's health. Discovering data that revealed air quality around her child's elementary school in Portland, Ore. ranked among the worst in the nation transformed her into an activist.
That realization prompted her to found Neighbors for Clean Air, a public health advocacy group focused on air quality in Oregon, and ultimately forge an agreement with a local metal foundry to cut emissions. The experience also made her recognize the importance of technology in understanding air quality.
Now, Peveto and 16 other Portlanders are participating in a research experiment that is putting technology into the hands of individual residents so they can play a role in improving general air quality data being collected by national and state agencies. Led by Intel Labs, the experiment is designed to improve air quality readings using common, low-cost sensors. Data from the air quality sensors feeds directly to websites that analyze and present visualizations of the data that are readily understandable.
Ken Anderson, anthropologist and senior researcher at Intel Labs, believes this experiment could lead to new applications. These would be even more robust than the Environmental Protection Agency's AIRNow mobile app and for people to better manage their health and wellness using personal computer devices. By getting more individuals to capture and openly share air quality data could show how people are able to play an important role in growing what he calls a "data economy."

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