With advances in technological sciences, individuals can utilize low-cost air monitoring sensors to record air quality at homes, schools, and businesses. Air quality data collected from LCSs are publicly accessible, informing the community of the air quality around them. It is important to measure local and regional particulate matter (PM) concentrations to keep the public involved, especially those with specific health concerns, such as asthma, wheezing, and seasonal allergies. The number of studies involving the use of LCSs to evaluate PM levels is increasing with more manufacturers producing ‘easy to use’ LCSs targeting the public. The goal of this review is to understand and incorporate the findings from studies using LCSs to analyze PM of various sizes, i.e., PM₁, PM_2.5, PM₄, and PM₁₀. This review integrates analyses from 51 different studies in 14 countries, including the U.S. The findings indicate spatial heterogeneity in the PM concentrations across a region. Some of the low-cost sensor manufacturers mentioned in these studies include Plantower, AQMesh, Alpha-sense, PurpleAir, E-MOTEs, and Shinyei. This review emphasizes the importance of LCSs in the field of PM monitoring and its potential to inform the public about their exposure burden, and to aid state and federal decision makers in formulating policies for mitigating the effects of PM pollution in any urban or rural setting.

Although public agencies must mutually coordinate climate policy and other complex environmental issues, the extent and relative importance of informal networks and different dimensions of trust to the process remains underresearched. Addressing this, we conducted surveys and interviews with civil servants from numerous agencies and three levels of government working on climate change–related policy in the state of New York. We examined the effect of two network properties on mutual learning on climate change–related issues: the extent to which interagency communication takes places through formal and informal channels, and the distribution of two dimensions of trust (“fair play” and “relational comfort”) across the network. Our analysis revealed that formal communication among staff at different agencies was utilized more often than informal and that interagency relationships were more characterized by a feeling of “fair play” than by “relational comfort,” yet informal communication and Relational Comfort were the most important in facilitating interagency collaboration.

(2014). Building-Integrated Photovoltaics: Distributed Energy Development for Urban Sustainability. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 56, No. 6, pp. 4-17.