I-Capstone GEMM Municipal Air Monitoring Project
The GEMM I-CapstoneTeam presented their project, 'The Emission Mission', at the Futures Cities I-Capstone Symposium on March 26, 2025. The team developed a data network of affordable air monitoring sensors on campus to investigate localized air monitoring in growing urban populations.
L to R: Rafay Hassan Chishty, Chanpakorn Chaiklahan, Tanveer Singh, and Yuan Yuan (GEMM I-Capstone Team).
Our rapidly changing climate increasingly requires more accurate, improved environmental data and forecast models to help urban decision-making mitigate and adapt the impacts of climate change.
The GEMM I-Capstone team explored the deployment of a denser, lower-cost air monitoring network on the University of Waterloo campus that could provide more localized, precise data on the impacts of air quality to campus.
Particulate Matter sensor outside of Environment 3 (EV3) at the University of Waterloo.
Weather Station with Particulate Matter and GHG Air Monitoring Device on the roof of Engineering 2 at the University of Waterloo.
Through partnership with Liveable Cities, a Canadian owned and operated company from Halifax, the team was able to deploy sensors around campus and create a tool to access real-time data for particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10). They explored how a network of affordable air monitoring sensors could be strategically located and connected to a pyramid-structured hierarchical sensor network.
Recommendations from the project include:
- Consider how a similar network could be installed in the local municipalities, including at major roads and intersections and other areas which could have elevated levels of particulate matter.
- Apply machine learning and AI to the data pipeline for data calibration and interpretation.
- Consider how a lower-cost network could be integrated into existing infrastructure.
- Examine potential for a mobile network in addition to static sensors.