Based on the report, Strengthening Air Quality Management Guidance, developed by the Clean Air Fund, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and Global Health Visions (GHV), less than a third of countries that were surveyed have successfully implemented monitoring networks or have air quality management (AQM) strategies. The main barriers to establishing an air quality monitoring network highlighted in the report are lack of technical capacity and funding. Currently, traditional air quality monitoring involves stationary, physical, and often costly equipment, also known as ‘regulatory’ or ‘reference’ sensors. Comprehensive quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC), calibration, and maintenance plans are also required to ensure that the sensors are working properly and that the air quality data from the sensors are robust and accurate. Continuous and reliable data is necessary to be able to track the general ambient air quality within a city or country over a long-term period and to be able to capture elevated air quality levels during exceptional air pollution events.

Reference air quality monitoring equipment is also not able to provide the granularity needed to understand hyperlocal variations in air quality. In this context, low-cost sensors are a plausible solution for hyperlocal air quality monitoring. Although such sensors cannot replace traditional reference sensors, they can complement the reference sensors and provide a general indicator of air quality levels.

However, key challenges remain in deploying such low-cost solutions, namely funding constraints, and lack of technical knowledge to effectively deploy existing low-cost solutions. Although low-cost sensors are less costly as compared to traditional reference sensors, the existing market rate for these sensors may still not be affordable for resource-constrained cities. Significant vendor support is also needed for the setup, operation, maintenance, and data analyses of the sensor network, which adds recurrent costs on top of hardware costs.

While there are many lower-cost air quality monitoring solutions available in the market, users would typically need some level of technical knowledge or inputs from an air quality expert on how to design and deploy them effectively, as well as how to calibrate them against reference air quality monitors and interpret the data generated. A user may be interested in deploying the solution but lack the expertise and resources to select the right solution providers and work with them in customising the solution for their needs. Although resources on air quality monitoring are available online, the content is often tailored to expert practitioners, is usually not available in local languages, and can also be inconsistent or outdated.

As such, the UNDP Global Centre Singapore, in partnership with Singapore’s Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, will be collaborating with innovators to develop an affordable, easy-to-setup, and easy-to-use air quality monitoring toolkit, to enable secondary and tertiary cities, and those in developing countries, to self-monitor hyperlocal air quality, without needing prior technical expertise. The toolkit will also be deployed in a pilot test, to assess its performance, useability, and potential to be deployed in cities worldwide.

Find out more about the toolkit below: