New Tool Shows Air Pollution’s Path

(HOUSTON, TX) Environmental Defense Fund today unveiled Air Tracker, a first-of-its-kind web-based tool that allows users to plot the likely path of air pollution. Run on real-time, trusted scientific models and coupled with air pollution and weather data and developed in partnership with the University of Utah and the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, Air Tracker helps users learn more about the air they're breathing, including pollution concentrations and its potential sources. 

“Air quality monitors can show us how polluted our air is, but they aren’t equipped to tell us what is causing the pollution,” says Tammy Thompson, Senior Air Quality Scientist and creator of the tool. “With Air Tracker, we’re able to see likely sources of pollution hotspots, which is especially helpful in cities where a variety of emitters contribute to overall air quality.” 

Users can click anywhere on maps of Houston, Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh to create a “source area,” which shows the most likely origin of the air they’re breathing at any given time. They can also click on locations of individual air quality sensors to show real-time and historical fine particle (PM 2.5) pollution readings, wind speed and direction. 

Relying on STILT, the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model, Air Tracker incorporates a variety of weather forecasting models to show how particles move through the atmosphere, allowing the tool to map the probability of pollution’s path. Air Tracker goes beyond common source identification models–which are unable to capture fine-scale air pollution variability–to identify pollution sources at the city block level.  

In Houston, for example, where a lack of zoning has allowed industrial sources to operate near communities with homes, schools, churches and hospitals, Air Tracker uses both real-time and historical data to show how different sources contribute to poor air quality at different dates and times. 

“Breathing dirty air is bad for our health, and these health effects are not distributed equally.” said Sarah Vogel, EDF Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities. “The poorer and more disadvantaged groups disproportionately suffer the greater exposures and health impacts from air pollution. We hope community leaders and individuals will use this pollution data to hold polluters accountable and advocate for clean air policy change.”

In addition to learning more about the sources likely influencing the air they breathe, Air Tracker users can also use the real-time source area identification to help speed mitigation and help spot and control emissions resulting from accidents and unusual events. Through its “Share” feature, users can take screenshots of source areas to send to regulators and local officials. 

Air Tracker is part of EDF’s ongoing work to better understand local air pollution, its behavior and its impacts. Air Tracker can be adapted to include additional pollutants and used in other cities around the world, including those that may not yet feature extensive, hyper-local air quality monitoring programs. 

To learn more about Air Tracker, EDF’s Global Clean Air efforts and the project partners, visit https://globalcleanair.org/air-tracker/