Using Low-Cost Measurement Systems to Investigate Air Quality: A Case Study in Palapye, Botswana
by
William Lassman 1,*,†
, Jeffrey R. Pierce 1, Evelyn J. Bangs 1, Amy P. Sullivan 1, Bonne Ford 1, Gizaw Mengistu Tsidu 2, James P. Sherman 3, Jeffrey L. Collett, Jr. 1 and Solomon Bililign 4
William Lassman 1,*,†, Jeffrey R. Pierce 1, Evelyn J. Bangs 1, Amy P. Sullivan 1, Bonne Ford 1, Gizaw Mengistu Tsidu 2, James P. Sherman 3, Jeffrey L. Collett, Jr. 1 and Solomon Bililign 4
1
Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, 1301 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
2
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Private Bag 16, Palapye, Botswana
3
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University, 525 Rivers Street, Boone, NC 28608, USA
4
Department of Physics, North Carolina A&T University, 306 Marteena, 302 Gibbs, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Now at, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Atmosphere, Earth and Energy Division, 7000 East Ave., Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
Atmosphere 2020, 11(6), 583; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060583
Received: 19 May 2020 / Revised: 29 May 2020 / Accepted: 31 May 2020 / Published: 9 June 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Opportunities and Challenges in Air Pollution Exposure Assessment)
Exposure to particulate air pollution is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. In developing countries, the combustion of solid fuels is widely used as a source of energy, and this process can produce exposure to harmful levels of particulate matter with diameters smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5). However, as countries develop, solid fuel may be replaced by centralized coal combustion, and vehicles burning diesel and gasoline may become common, changing the concentration and composition of PM2.5, which ultimately changes the population health effects. Therefore, there is a continuous need for in-situ monitoring of air pollution in developing nations, both to estimate human exposure and to monitor changes in air quality. In this study, we present measurements from a 5-week field experiment in Palapye, Botswana. We used a low-cost, highly portable instrument package to measure surface-based aerosol optical depth (AOD), real-time surface PM2.5 concentrations using a third-party optical sensor, and time-integrated PM2.5 concentration and composition by collecting PM2.5 onto Teflon filters. Furthermore, we employed other low-cost measurements of real-time black carbon and time-integrated ammonia to help interpret the observed PM2.5 composition and concentration information during the field experiment. We found that the average PM2.5 concentration (9.5 µg∙m−3) was below the World Health Organization (WHO) annual limit, and this concentration closely agrees with estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) report estimates for this region. Sulfate aerosol and carbonaceous aerosol, likely from coal combustion and biomass burning, respectively, were the main contributors to PM2.5 by mass (33% and 27% of total PM2.5 mass, respectively). While these observed concentrations were on average below WHO guidelines, we found that the measurement site experienced higher concentrations of aerosol during first half our measurement period (14.5 µg∙m−3), which is classified as “moderately unhealthy” according to the WHO standard.
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Keywords:
PM2.5; low-cost measurements; Botswana; air quality; air pollution
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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Externally hosted supplementary file 1
Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/207600
Link: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/207600
Description: Quality-controlled data used in the publication.
MDPI and ACS Style
Lassman, W.; Pierce, J.R.; Bangs, E.J.; Sullivan, A.P.; Ford, B.; Mengistu Tsidu, G.; Sherman, J.P.; Collett, J.L., Jr.; Bililign, S. Using Low-Cost Measurement Systems to Investigate Air Quality: A Case Study in Palapye, Botswana. Atmosphere 2020, 11, 583.
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