Title: Air Quality Assessment in the Global South: PM Concentrations, Exposures, and Sources
Abstract:
There is a large disparity worldwide in the number, density, and chemical specificity of ground-based monitors measuring fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and other air pollutants. The PM2.5 monitoring infrastructure is significantly larger and more robust in the Global North and parts of China and India than in much of the Global South. Many Global South countries, including multiple countries in Africa, have either no PM2.5 monitoring network or rely entirely on low-cost sensors that provide little to no information on PM2.5 composition and sources. The lack of PM2.5 monitoring in the Global South means that our collective understanding of global PM2.5 composition and chemistry has a severe Global North bias and often lacks data from tropical and arid regions. This seminar focuses on recent work to close that gap in three ways: detailed PM2.5 composition measurements in Kigali, Rwanda; the use of a global network of monitors at U.S. Embassies to quantify PM2.5 composition in major cities; and the development of integrated tools to improve PM2.5 exposure estimates. We show that people in the Global South often live with high PM2.5 exposures, due in part to high emissions from primary sources like traffic and biomass burning.
