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Engineering researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed the most detailed and extensive local map of air pollution ever produced for an urban area, using specially equipped Google Street View cars to measure air quality on a block-by-block basis. This new hyper-local mobile approach to measuring air quality, which reveals that air pollution can vary dramatically even within a single city block, could address major air quality monitoring gaps worldwide.

The research team was led by Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering assistant professor Joshua Apte in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Google and Aclima, a San Francisco-based company that delivers environmental intelligence through sensor networks. By integrating Aclima’s sensor system into Google Street View cars, the team mapped air pollution in 78 square miles of Oakland, California, over an entire year, collecting one of the largest data sets of air pollution ever measured of single city streets. This new technique maps urban air pollution at 100,000 times greater spatial resolution than is possible with traditional government air quality monitors. Their approach and findings were published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The study included co-authors from the University of Washington, University of British Columbia, Utrecht University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Aclima and EDF.

The team believes that their hyper-local mobile measurement system could be implemented in many cities throughout the world, providing detailed air quality information for citizens, families, local governments and scientists. The new technique could address major air quality monitoring gaps worldwide and has the potential to transform the way air pollution is monitored in urban areas as well as shed light on the health effects on city dwellers.

Air pollution is a major global risk factor for illness and death, and the air pollution that people are breathing can be, at times, far worse than what official air quality monitors report. Most large urban areas have only one air quality monitor for every 100 to 200 square miles. In comparison, the mobile approach outlined in today’s paper and led by researchers at UT Austin, maps air pollution every 100 feet, or at about four to five locations along a single city block.

“Air pollution varies very finely in space, and we can’t capture that variation with other existing measurement techniques,” Apte said. “Using our approach and analysis techniques, we can now visualize air pollution with incredible detail. This kind of information could transform our understanding of the sources and impacts of air pollution.”

In many locations, the team’s Google cars measured air pollution levels that were several times higher than at Oakland’s official monitors. In their analysis, the researchers also identified many recurring hotspots where pollution on a single block was consistently much higher than elsewhere in a neighborhood. These pollution hotspots included the port, busy intersections, restaurants, warehouses, industrial plants and vehicle dealerships. 


“What surprised us is that there are consistently locations that can be as much as six times more polluted on one end of the block than on the other,” said Kyle Messier, a UT Austin postdoctoral fellow and a co-author of the study. “Among other things, this demonstrates that people are getting disproportionate exposures of unhealthy air at some locations.”

This project is the latest phase of a partnership between EDF and Google, who have been working together since 2012 to map and measure a growing list of health and environmental risks, including hidden leaks from local natural gas systems.

“Air pollution is largely an invisible threat, one that poses especially disproportionate risks in lower-income areas like West Oakland. This new method allows us to visualize the data so communities and policymakers can identify the sources of harmful pollution and take action to improve safety and health,” said Steven Hamburg, EDF’s chief scientist.

The study’s approach was designed to be cost-effective and easily replicated. For instance, research partner Aclima designed pollution sensing systems that made it straightforward to collect high-quality air pollution data on moving vehicles day after day. Driving more than 14,000 miles, the Google cars collected 3 million measurements of nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide and black carbon pollutants in Oakland, generating the largest urban air quality data set of its kind.

As the study’s principal investigators, UT Austin’s contributions included:


• Designing the data collection approach and directing where the cars drove on a daily basis.

• Developing data analysis algorithms to produce block-by-block maps of street-level air pollution from measurements made by passing Street View cars.

• Identifying neighborhood hotspots of air pollution.

• Determining how this approach could be efficiently scaled up to other urban areas.

In the future, Apte hopes this mobile air quality monitoring approach expands to other major cities to help formulate a hyper-local map of air pollution in the United States that could help people make more informed decisions.

“You could use this information when you’re picking a school for your kids. Is there a school with a playground that might have better air quality because your kid has asthma?” Apte said. “This hyper-local information about consistent air quality can be really useful for people, especially those who are vulnerable because of age or health condition.”

Funding for the study was provided by the Environmental Defense Fund.

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The Cockrell School of Engineering has named Robert Gilbert, an accomplished professor and geotechnical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin, as the next chair of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering.

Gilbert, who joined UT Austin as a faculty member in 1993, holds the Brunswick-Abernathy Regents Professorship in Soil Dynamics and Geotechnical Engineering. He will begin his appointment as chair on Sept. 1, 2017.

Gilbert replaces Richard Corsi, who has served as department chair since 2013 and is stepping down to focus on his research and teaching in the area of indoor air quality and pollution. Among his accomplishments as chair, Corsi hired seven new faculty members, launched a new undergraduate degree in environmental engineering and led the development of the department’s strategic plan, which focuses on solving complex problems surrounding the nexus of cities, water and energy.

“I am delighted to announce Bob as our next leader of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering,” said Sharon L. Wood, dean of the Cockrell School. “In addition to being an internationally respected expert in geotechnical engineering, Bob is a dedicated teacher who cares deeply about the success of our students. He is the right person to continue the progress made by Rich and to further advance the department in the coming years.”

“Bob has been a great colleague and friend for over two decades,” said Richard Corsi.  “He is dedicated to the profession, CAEE, and to our students. I have great confidence that he will be an exceptional leader of our CAEE community.”

Gilbert has established himself as an expert in assessing and managing risk. He has consulted on a variety of high-profile projects, including flood protection in New Orleans, the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, nuclear waste disposal in Nevada and offshore oil and gas facilities around the world. He was awarded the Outstanding Civilian Service Award from the United States Army Corps of Engineers for his service on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ External Review Panel in the forensic analysis of the levee failures in Hurricane Katrina.

“I am honored and excited to lead this department, which is consistently regarded as one of the finest in the nation,” Gilbert said. “I look forward to working with school and university leadership, as well as our outstanding and dedicated alumni, to continue to enhance our students’ experiences, strengthen our faculty community and advance our academic programs.”

In 2011, Gilbert received the Norman Medal, the highest award given by ASCE for a journal paper, and in 2016, he received the E.B. Burwell Award for his work with the National Science Foundation on the 2014 landslide in Oso, Washington. He is currently serving as a Governor for the Geo-Institute of ASCE and a member of the committee responsible for design guidelines for offshore facilities published by the American Petroleum Institute and the International Organization for Standardization.

Gilbert has also made a significant impact on teaching. In addition to teaching a variety of courses in geotechnical engineering and risk management, he has developed a senior capstone course in which students learn about the practice of engineering by applying their engineering skills to community service projects under the guidance of professional engineer mentors. A number of these projects have been implemented, including rain gardens at schools that have been constructed by volunteers from UT and the community together with K-12 students.

This year, Gilbert was inducted into UT Austin’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He is also a past recipient of The University of Texas System’s Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and the Cockrell School’s Lockheed Martin Teaching Award. Gilbert and his wife live in Austin with their four children. He lives an active lifestyle, having completed two ironman competitions and several marathons.

The Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin is one of four institutions selected by the National Science Foundation to partner with government agencies and private companies to tackle the nation’s most pressing transportation challenges.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has awarded the 2017 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize to Associate Professor Amit Bhasin. He is recognized for “creative and rigorous work on the mechanics and physio-chemical behavior of asphalt materials.”