Bittner Ashley S, Holder Amara L, Grieshop Andrew P, Hagler Gayle S W, Mitchell William
Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA.
United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Durham, NC 27709, USA.
Environ Sci Atmos. 2024 Feb 26;4(3):306-320. doi: 10.1039/D3EA00170A.
Fine particulate matter (PM) resulting from wildland fire is a significant public health risk in the United States (U.S.). The existing stationary monitoring network and the tools used to alert the public of smoke conditions, such as the Air Quality Index or NowCast, are not optimized to capture actual exposure concentrations in impacted communities given that wildland fire smoke plumes have characteristically steep exposure concentration gradients that can vary over fine spatiotemporal scales. In response, we developed and evaluated a lightweight, universally attachable mobile PM monitoring system to provide supplemental, real-time air quality information during wildfire incidents and prescribed burning activities. We retroactively assessed the performance of the mobile monitor compared to nearby (100-1500 m) stationary low-cost sensors and regulatory monitors using 1 minute averaged data collected during two large wildfires in the western U.S. and during one small, prescribed burn in the Midwest. The mobile measurements were highly correlated ( > 0.85) with the stationary network during the large wildfires. Further, 1 minute averaged mobile measurements differed from three collocated stationary instruments by <25% on average for fourteen out of fifteen total passages. For the small, prescribed burn, rapidly changing conditions near the fire border complicated the comparison of mobile and stationary measurements but the spatial maximum concentrations measured by both instruments were consistent. In general, this work highlights the value of using portable sensor technologies to address the monitoring challenges presented by dynamic wildland fire conditions and demonstrates the value in combining mobile monitoring with stationary data where possible.
在美国，野火产生的细颗粒物（PM）对公众健康构成重大风险。鉴于野火烟雾羽流具有典型的陡峭暴露浓度梯度，且在精细的时空尺度上会有所变化，现有的固定监测网络以及用于向公众通报烟雾状况的工具，如空气质量指数或即时预报，并未针对捕捉受影响社区的实际暴露浓度进行优化。作为回应，我们开发并评估了一种轻便、可普遍安装的移动PM监测系统，以在野火事件和规定燃烧活动期间提供补充性的实时空气质量信息。我们利用在美国西部两次大型野火以及中西部一次小型规定燃烧期间收集的1分钟平均数据，追溯性地评估了移动监测仪与附近（100 - 1500米）的固定低成本传感器和监管监测仪相比的性能。在大型野火期间，移动测量值与固定监测网络高度相关（> 0.85）。此外，在总共15次通过中，有14次1分钟平均移动测量值与三个并置的固定仪器的差异平均小于25%。对于小型规定燃烧，火灾边界附近快速变化的条件使移动和固定测量的比较变得复杂，但两种仪器测量的空间最大浓度是一致的。总体而言，这项工作突出了使用便携式传感器技术应对动态野火条件带来的监测挑战的价值，并展示了在可能的情况下将移动监测与固定数据相结合的价值。
