Infrastructural Needs in the Low-Cost Air Sensors Domain: The Need and Benefit of Making Air Sensors Adhere to the FAIR Principles

Recent years has seen the proliferation in the use of low-cost air sensors by a wide range of users from professional (government and academic) to amateurs (consumers). While the data quality of these devices is in question, there are also other infrastructural needs that are lacking in the air sensors domain. First of all there is a lack of data and metadata standards so the output of each brand of device varies. Secondly, there is a need for nominally free cloud resources where users can upload, analyze, visualize, and perhaps most importantly, "share", the data collected. Third, while there are some governmental efforts examining data quality, no third party technology verification or certification program yet exists. These issues are starting to be addressed and to the extend that they are addressed affects the ultimate utility of data being produced by air sensors. In order to properly utilize data from distributed nodes and networks of air sensors for the purposes of evaluating satellite AOD retrievals, or computational air quality models, adherence to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) are necessary. This talk will describe efforts underway to address these issues.