Comparing Air Quality Sites

Air quality continues to be in the news with New York Times articles like these:

A quick review of web based air quality resources shows a range of sites featuring maps, time series plots and relevant information.

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Methow Valley Air Quality

Mazama Science has released a new set of tutorials demonstrating the use of air quality R packages to investigate data from regulatory monitors and low-cost sensors. This post is just a short summary of what the tutorials cover. We invite anyone interested in wildfire smoke and air quality to run through the tutorials and provide feedback.

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Qualitative Display of Air Quality Data

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

This post briefly summarizes our thoughts on best practices for designing public-facing data graphics for air quality data. Focus will be on the types of charts we feel are appropriate to use with data (e.g. from low-cost sensors) that may not be as accurate as data collected by monitors using Federal Regulatory or Federal Equivalent Methods (see FRMs/FEMs and Sensors). Visualization types discussed will include:

  • maps
  • time-series charts
  • calendars
  • status and forecast tables
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