Toward Massive Scale Air Quality Monitoring

Dangers associated with poor air quality are driving deployments of air quality monitoring technology. These deployments rely either on professional-grade measurement stations or a small number of low-cost sensors integrated into urban infrastructure. In this article, we present a research vision of real-time massive scale air quality sensing that integrates tens of thousands or even millions of air quality sensors to monitor air quality at fine spatial and temporal resolution. We highlight opportunities and challenges of our vision by discussing use cases, key requirements and reference technologies in order to establish a roadmap on how to realize this vision. We address the feasibility of our vision, introducing a testbed deployment in Helsinki, Finland, and carrying out controlled experiments that address collaborative and opportunistic sensor calibration, a key research challenge for our vision.Peer reviewe

Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation

The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore:  Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof

Experimental Study of Various Techniques to Protect Ice-Rich Cut Slopes

INE/AUTC 15.08 and INE/AUTC 13.07 (2013) Construction Repor

Remote sensing of water quality in reservoirs and lakes in semi-arid climates

Overlake measurements using aerial cameras (remote sensing) combined with water truth collected from boats most economically provided wide-band photographs rather than precise spectra. With use of false color infrared film (400-950 nm), the reflected spectral signatures seen from hundreds to thousands of meters above the lake merged to produce various color tones. Such colors were easily and inexpensively obtained and could be recognized by lake management personnel without any prior training. The characteristic spectral signatures of various algal types were also recognizable in part by the color tone produced by remote sensing

Can\u27t You Smell That Smell? Clean Air Act Fixes for Factory Farm Air Pollution

Massive facilities that keep large numbers of livestock have overtaken small, independent farms as the primary source of meat, eggs, and dairy in the United States. These concentrated animal feeding operations ( CAFOs) compare more to industrial manufacturing operations than to traditional farms, and emit huge quantities of air pollutants that are harmful to public health, sickening people and damaging the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) possesses statutorily provided tools under the Clean Air Act that it uses to regular other polluting industries. However, this article - after reviewing the rise of CAFOs, examining the threats they pose, and surveying current regulation - suggests that the EPA\u27s approach to CAFOs is grossly inadequate. The article argues that the agency, under the Clean Air Act, should regulate the emissions of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, two pollutants for which factory farms are major sources. This approach is incomplete, however. Pollutant-based regulation is both overbroad in that it will regulate other sources of these pollutants and underbroad because CAFO air pollution includes more than just these pollutants. The EPA should therefore additionally or alternatively rely on a more thorough and flexible pollution source-specific tool, the New Source Performance Standards ( NSPS ). NSPS are analogous to the rigorous source-specific approach used to regulate CAFO water pollution under the Clean Water Act, and will provide a comprehensive antidote to the ills of modern, industrial animal agriculture