| Title: | UAV-Based Wildland Fire Air Toxics Data Collection and Analysis |
| Author(s): | Ragbir P; Kaduwela A; Passovoy D; Amin P; Ye S; Wallis C; Alaimo C; Young T; Kong Z; |
| Address: | "Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Air Quality Research Center, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 715 P St., Sacramento, CA 95814, USA. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1424-8220 (Electronic) 1424-8220 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Smoke plumes emitted from wildland-urban interface (WUI) wildfires contain toxic chemical substances that are harmful to human health, mainly due to the burning of synthetic components. Accurate measurement of these air toxics is necessary for understanding their impacts on human health. However, air pollution is typically measured using ground-based sensors, manned airplanes, or satellites, which all provide low-resolution data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have the potential to provide high-resolution spatial and temporal data due to their ability to hover in specific locations and maneuver with precise trajectories in 3-D space. This study investigates the use of an octocopter UAV, equipped with a customized air quality sensor package and a volatile organic compound (VOC) air sampler, for the purposes of collecting and analyzing air toxics data from wildfire plumes. The UAV prototype developed has been successfully tested during several prescribed fires conducted by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). Data from these experiments were analyzed with emphasis on the relationship between the air toxics measured and the different types of vegetation/fuel burnt. BTEX compounds were found to be more abundant for hardwood burning compared to grassland burning, as expected" |
| Keywords: | Unmanned Aerial Vehicles air quality monitoring low-cost sensors smoke plumes volatile organic compounds wildfire; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINERagbir, Prabhash Kaduwela, Ajith Passovoy, David Amin, Preet Ye, Shuchen Wallis, Christopher Alaimo, Christopher Young, Thomas Kong, Zhaodan eng P30 ES023513/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ Switzerland 2023/04/14 Sensors (Basel). 2023 Mar 29; 23(7):3561. doi: 10.3390/s23073561" |
