AirSensor R package and DataViewer

Description and Intended Purpose

The AirSensor R-Package and DataViewer were developed through a collaboration between the AQ-SPEC group at the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) and a former software company (Mazama Science) in Seattle, WA. These tools are intended to support data exploration and analysis by community members participating in the US EPA funded Science To Achieve Results (STAR) Grant at the South Coast AQMD, entitled “Engage, Educate and Empower California Communities on the Use and Applications of Low-cost Air Monitoring Sensors." The initial development of AirSensor and AirSensor DataViewer has been published by Feenstra et al. in the Environmental Modelling and Software Journal as open access under the title "The AirSensor open-source R-package and DataViewer web application for interpreting community data collected by low-cost sensor networks." A follow-up publication is also available in the Environmental Modelling & Software Journal, titled "AirSensor v1.0: Enhancements to the open-source R package to enable deep understanding of the long-term performance and reliability of PurpleAir sensors". This second publication describes enhancements to the package and illustrates how it may be used to assess and analyze data from an extensive network of sensors. The current development is focused on the PurpleAir sensor and the PM concentrations reported by it; however, future software development shall make the tool sensor and pollutant agnostic. 

AirSensor R-package

AirSensor is an open source R package available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). AirSensor is designed to address the environmental data science challenges of visualizing and understanding local air quality conditions with community networks of low-cost air quality sensors. AirSensor allows users to access historical data, add spatial metadata, and create maps and plots for viewing community monitoring data collected by sensors that are in the PurpleAir air quality sensor network. The AirSensor R package can be downloaded within R Studio from CRAN and the source codes is available at AirSensor GitHub.

AirSensor DataViewer

The DataViewer application was developed to incorporate the functionality and plotting functions of the AirSensor R-package into a user-friendly web experience that would serve as the primary source for data communication for community-based organizations and citizen scientists. The DataViewer provides a user friendly format to understand the historical data collected from the STAR grant sensor deployment. The DataViewer can be accessed at the DataViewer Link (note, the DataViewer is temporarily off-line, as necessary upgrades to the AirSensor package are being completed). A DataViewer User Guide has been developed to assist community members navigate the DataViewer. The source code for the DataViewer is available at DataViewer GitHub. 

Disclaimer

These tools are intended to be used for educational and informational purposes only. Furthermore, the code used to build these tools, the QA/QC procedures, and the different features of these tools may be subject to revision at any time depending on the needs of the project. This work was developed under Assistance Agreement No. RD83618401 awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. This work has not been formally reviewed by EPA.