Clarity Movement Co. and the City of Cupertino are working together to collect hyperlocal air quality data in Cupertino, CA. Walking down Foothill Boulevard to the VTA bus stop or grabbing a coffee by City Hall, Cupertino residents may have noticed little gray boxes or “Clarity Nodes” — Clarity’s air quality monitoring devices — strapped to light poles around the city. These small but powerful Clarity Nodes have been strategically deployed at five locations in Cupertino to gather real-time, accurate air quality data that are made publicly available (Clarity’s OpenMap) to help residents understand local air quality levels and promote dialogue with communities around the importance of air quality.
Although overall air quality in the Bay Area is generally clean, high regional emissions from industrial polluters pose a huge public health threat to neighboring residents. The disparate regional variation in air quality is increasing the demand for hyperlocal air quality monitoring.
In Cupertino, the Lehigh Hanson Cement Plant sits on the LeHigh Permanente Quarry just west of the city of over 60,000 residents. LeHigh has long been in a back-and-forth conversation with the city over the years regarding the cement plant’s negative environmental impacts on the local community. Concerns over air pollution, including particulate matter from the blasts in the quarry, have motivated the City of Cupertino to take further action in measuring and quantifying the city’s air quality at a more local level.
Clarity and the City of Cupertino are working together to use the collected data to identify air pollution hotspots and trends from LeHigh Quarry and other sources. The collected data will aid the city in developing effective air pollution mitigation strategies and help residents stay informed about the air they’re breathing.
Deployment Locations
1. City Hall Plaza
2. Environmental Education Center at McClellan Ranch Preserve
3. Kennedy Middle School
4. Oak Valley Park
5. Foothill Boulevard-Cupertino Road Intersection
Viewing Local Air Quality Data
1. View your local air pollution by scanning the QR code on the street signs or visiting openmap.clarity.io.
2. Zoom in/out to find the Clarity Node(s) of interest. A guide to the Air Quality Index colors and numbers are available on the accompanying street signs at each Clarity Node location and below.
3. Clicking on the Node(s) of interest will open a Card displaying a range of specific pollutants including PM2.5 , AQI, temperature, and humidity. More pollutants will be added to the Card as they become available.
4. Click “Show in Plot” on the Card to view a visual visualization of the air quality data for location comparison or tracking change over time. This will open a plot with the air quality data of the selected Node. Once the plot dashboard is open, you are able to select pollutant type, toggle between different timeline views, or add other Nodes for air quality comparisons.
5. You can use the data from Clarity OpenMap to do the following:
• Understand your local pollution exposure
• Share air pollution information with family and friends
• Provide data for citizen science projects
• Engage students with environmental education projects
How are you using the data? Let us know at contact@clarity.io.
Our Vision
Everyone has the right to breathe clean air. At Clarity, we leverage our expertise in air sensing technology, IoT devices, and data analytics to create solutions that revolutionize the way we understand and respond to air pollution. Founded in 2014, we are now deploying the next generation of dense air quality monitoring networks around the world to build smarter cities through smarter data.
Interested in our solution? Need help using Clarity OpenMap? Contact us here.