Project description

Low-Cost Sensors (LCS), compared to instruments used in regulatory monitoring of criteria pollutants (or reference monitoring), have lower purchase costs, lower energy consumption, and are lightweight and small, making them easy to transport. Additionally, they are easy to operate, and some have developed user-friendly applications where data can be visualized, making them attractive for civil society users and for data collection for research by academic groups. These advantages have led to a growing interest in recent years in taking advantage of this technology for air quality monitoring.

However, these devices should be used with caution due to the lack of reliability of the measured data, mainly because they are highly sensitive to environmental factors.

Based on EPA reports and current scientific knowledge, the objective of this document prepared by the Clean Air Institute is to provide recommendations and guidance for countries to develop and implement protocols to test and validate the performance of LCS, including acceptability criteria.

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​This project was carried out within the framework of an air quality technical support project for Latin American and Caribbean countries provided by the Clean Air Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme