Breathe Baltimore
Welcome to Breathe Baltimore: A Community-Based Air Quality Monitoring Project in Baltimore
Breathe Baltimore is a collaborative effort and co-led by the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative (EJJI) and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). The project’s goal is to create a low-cost air quality monitoring network that can provide data to support communities suffering from poor air quality in South Baltimore.
The project’s goal is to create a low-cost air quality monitoring network that can provide data to support communities suffering from poor air quality in South Baltimore.
We're currently in the first phase of setting up and testing 15 sensors—most are in South Baltimore with others around the city. These sensors will measure particulate pollution, ozone, and other emissions, and the data will be made available to the public.
One sensor has been deployed, testing is underway, and the additional 14 sites are still being selected. SERC and EJJI are committed to choosing sites relevant to Baltimore communities and understanding city pollution patterns.
Breathe Baltimore team pose by the first deployed sensor in West Covington Park. Photo by Anna Hedinger.
A close-up of the first deployed sensor. There are multiple LED lights that light up a color based on the level of each air pollutant measured in that location. Photo by Anna Hedinger.
Lydia LaGorga, a technician in the Technology in Ecology Lab, sets up the air quality sensors for first round of outside testing on SERC's Edgewater campus. Photo by Anna Hedinger.
This project is made possible by funding from the Our Shared Future: Life on a Sustainable Planet initiative.
The Breathe Baltimore logo was created by EJJI. Top photo by Veronica Lucchese.
About the Project
What is the Breathe Baltimore Project?
Breathe Baltimore is a community-based research project addressing air quality issues in Baltimore. The project is a collaborative effort and co-led by the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative (EJJI) and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC).
The project’s goal is to create a low-cost air quality monitoring network that can provide data to support communities suffering from poor air quality in South Baltimore.
We're currently in the first phase of setting up and testing 15 sensors—most are in South Baltimore with others around the city. These sensors will measure particulate pollution, ozone, and other emissions, and the data will be made available to the public.
One sensor has been deployed, testing is underway, and the additional 14 sites are still being selected. SERC and EJJI are committed to choosing sites relevant to Baltimore communities and understanding city pollution patterns.
Why study air quality in South Baltimore?
Community partners in South Baltimore are concerned about their air quality, which is a critical environmental health risk.
Baltimore has only one permanent EPA air quality monitoring station located in the higher-income Lake Montebello neighborhood. Air quality varies across small areas, much like weather patterns. For example in the Cherry Hill neighborhood air pollution (caused by small particulates and ozone) and Air Toxics Cancer Risk is higher than most of the state of Maryland (EPA EJScreen Report, 2023).
About Outdoor Air Pollution and Monitoring
Environmental Pollution
Pollution has many faces. Some pollutants, like mercury, are dangerous even in small quantities. Others, like nutrient pollution, are harmful in excess when massive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus stream into the water. And some, like ultraviolet radiation, are ambiguous: the same rays that can cause skin cancer and cataracts also help the body make vitamin D.
SERC researchers trace pollution from its origins in the air, the land, and the water. Nutrient pollution has a myriad of sources: exhaust from cars, fertilizers on farms and lawns, and sewage from cities and suburbs. When it reaches large bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay, it can feed algal blooms that contribute to low-oxygen dead zones. On the mercury front, SERC microbial ecologists uncover hotspots where microbes transform mercury into methylmercury, a neurotoxin that contaminates our food webs, negatively impacting people and wildlife. And SERC photobiologists have monitored ultraviolet radiation from the forests of Maryland to the waters of the South Pole.
But SERC researchers are also looking for solutions. In the 1980s, they helped discover that riparian buffers (streamside forests and marshes) can act as sponges, soaking up nutrient pollution and keeping it out of the water. Today, SERC scientists have studied and sometimes led stream restorations, seeking to uncover what it takes to make restorations successful and what additional ripples a restoration can have on the environment. SERC’s microbial ecologists helped develop a technique to reduce methylmercury risk from mercury-contaminated sediments and soils. By understanding the nature of environmental problems and their origins, scientists are finding ways to overcome them.
What is outdoor air pollution? How does it affect you? How can it be measured?
Find answers to these questions and more in infographics created by Anna Hedinger, the Science Communication intern for the project in Summer 2023.
The Basics
Frequently Asked Questions About The Pollutants We Are Monitoring
Learn more about the three types of air pollutants the Breathe Baltimore project is monitoring: Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Carbon Dioxide.
Methods
In this pilot phase, there will be 15 sites, each with a set of sensors. Most sites are located in South Baltimore, but we are also planning to located sensors across the city to understand how air pollution varies by space and socioeconomic variables.
The Sensors
The sensor box contains multiple sensors that measure the following air pollutants: particulate pollution, ozone, and carbon dioxide. Want to learn more about these air pollutants? Check out the “About Air Pollution and Monitoring” page.
The choice of sensors is based on community concerns, and the final design and configuration will incorporate community input after the initial testing and deployment. For example, at many of the identified sites, power sources are not readily available and solar capabilities have been incorporated into the sensor logger design.
Focus of the sensor design is 1) accessibility, 2) easy of use, and 3) comparability with other sensor systems. For the first round of testing, data will need to be manually downloaded; however, in future iterations we hope to enable wireless data transfer to speed up the data back piece.
Data
Coming soon! All air quality data collected from the sensors will be made publicly available.
Get Involved
Become an Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative (EJJI) volunteer
Sites selected to house the air quality monitoring systems will be located throughout Baltimore. Sensors are low power, will be placed in secure locations, and local stewards will be needed to help record and share the data with SERC scientists.
No prior experience or technical knowledge required! We will provide any needed training.
If you are interested in helping collect and share air quality data, do the following steps:
- Sign up as an EJJI volunteer and be sure to select "Air quality testing" for question 5.
- Email Veronica Lucchese, EJJI's Environmental Science Program Manager.
Have questions?
Sensors and Data - SERC
- Alison Cawood (CawoodA@si.edu), Director of Public Engagement
- Roy Rich (RichR@si.edu), Research Scientist and Head of the Technology in Ecology Lab
Volunteering and Site Questions - EJJI
- Veronica Lucchese (Veronica@ejji.org), Environmental Science Programs Manager