Creating New Pathways to Air and Water Monitoring and Chemical Testing
From special sensors that monitor wildfires to innovative tools for detecting pollutants, EPA uses the best advances in technology and data analysis to help us protect human health and the environment. As part of this mission, new approaches to air and water quality monitoring and chemical testing are well underway. And our community, federal, and private-sector partners are a key part of this effort. Here are four programs you may not have heard of that are helping to chart the path forward:
1. The Smart City Air Challenge — Air quality sensors are becoming less and less expensive. That’s why more people across the country are using them to measure pollution levels in their own neighborhoods and in their own homes. We want to learn more about this growing trend. So, we developed the Smart City Air Challenge to encourage more communities to install air quality sensors. Through this program, we are eager to learn more about new approaches to managing data. We also want a better grasp of how communities are using data to understand how their local environment impacts human health.
2. Toxicology Testing in the 21st Century (Tox21) — EPA and our federal partners use a variety of techniques to test the safety of chemicals. Our goal is simple: we want to understand how our health is impacted by the thousands of chemicals we interact with every day — whether they’re in the food we eat, the water we drink, or in the products we buy. As part of our Tox21 federal collaboration, a group of scientists and researchers are using robotics technology to test 10,000 environmental chemicals for potential health effects. This strategy is leading the way as we look for more efficient and cost effective ways of predicting how different chemicals affect the human body.
3. National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) — As part of our goal to strengthen water quality monitoring across the country, we are working with our tribal, state, and federal partners on the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS). These surveys are important because they give us a snapshot of the overall condition of our nation’s coastal waters, lakes and reservoirs, rivers and streams, and wetlands. With this method for data collection and analysis, we are better equipped to detect contaminants that may pose risks to our water resources and to our overall health.
4. The Village Green Project — Through this initiative, residents and citizen scientists in seven cities across the country are learning more about the air they breathe by visiting seemingly-ordinary park benches embedded with air sensor technologies. Village Green stations use solar panels to power sensors and equipment that measure wind speed, temperature, and humidity. That information is then streamed online and community members can use it to monitor their local air quality. The Village Green Project is an innovative way to explore local air pollution in real time, minute by minute.
These are just four of the many ways that EPA relies on innovation to advance our important mission. We know that the rapid development of new technologies means even more developments are on the horizon, and we at EPA look forward to staying ahead of the curve. Partnerships, collaboration, and innovation will continue to play a vital role in everything we do to protect public health and the environment.
That’s #EPAforward.
