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Monitoring of air quality

Air pollution is a major environmental and public health concern, especially in urban areas. In El Salvador, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has identified a lack of adequate air quality monitoring. Currently, the Ministry of Environment (MARN) operates only three monitoring stations nationwide, limiting accurate assessments of pollution levels.

To address this issue, we developed a low-cost, mobile IoT-based system to monitor and map air quality. The system measures key pollutants, including particulate matter and formaldehyde, along with temperature and humidity. It also visualizes air quality using the Central American Air Quality Index (CAQI). A web-based platform enables real-time data storage, visualization, and geospatial mapping.

A prototype was tested over a one-month period on 15 routes across San Salvador, revealing that air quality generally ranged from good to moderate. This innovative approach provides an affordable solution for public and private organizations to improve air quality monitoring and urban planning.

AQ.jpg Art by Pixabay. Photo from SD-Pictures.

Publications

O.O. Flores-Cortez, C. Pocasangre, F. Arévalo, J. A. Oviedo, and R. B. Garcia. (2026). "Development and Implementation of a Low-Cost IoT Network for Air Quality Monitoring in the Historic Downtown of San Salvador". In: Marx Gómez, J., Sungkur, R.K., Pudaruth, S., Witte, JH., Schumann, G. (eds) Recent Advances in Information Systems. ICRAIS 2025. Progress in IS. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-14099-9_54.

O.O. Flores-Cortez, C. Pocasangre, and F. Arévalo (2026). “A Low-Cost Portable MIoT System for Noise and Air Pollution Spatial Profiling: A Case Study in San Salvador”. In: Huang, G., Huang, G., Li, Y., Zeng, Y. (eds) Environmental Science and Technology: Sustainable Development IV. ICEST 2025. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-19811-2_20.

O.O. Flores-Cortez, C. Pocasangre, and F. Arévalo (2026). “An M-IoT-Based System for Atmospheric Emission Monitoring and Mapping: A Case Study in San Salvador”. In: Auer, M.E., Langmann, R., May, D., Morales, M. (eds) Smart Technologies for an All-Electric Society. STE 2025. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 1663. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-07333-4_16.

J. S. R. D. Cid, C. M. R. Zepeda, L. R. R. Escobar, C. O. P. Jiménez, O. O. Flores-Cortez, and F. Arévalo, "Correlation Analysis and Air Quality Index for CO2 and TVOC in Downtown San Salvador, El Salvador", 2025 IEEE Central America and Panama Student Conference (CONESCAPAN), Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 2025, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/CONESCAPAN67936.2025.11229804.

O. O. Flores-Cortez, C. O. Pocasangre, F. Arevalo, B. A. Castillo and L. D. Segovia, "Mobile Air Quality Sensor System for GIS Mapping, Study Case in San Salvador City", 2024 IEEE ANDESCON, Cusco, Peru, 2024, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/ANDESCON61840.2024.10755697.

B. A. Castillo-Rosales, L. D. Segovia-López, C. Pocasangre, O.O. Flores-Cortez, and F. Arévalo. (2024). "Estudio de calidad del aire presente en el área metropolitana y su estado respecto a los índices centroamericanos en el contorno de la Universidad de El Salvador." Revista Minerva: Revista Científica Multidisciplinaria De La Universidad De El Salvador, 7(3), 119–128. doi: 10.5377/revminerva.v7i3.18911.

O. O. Flores-Cortez, C. Pocasangre Jimenez, F. Arévalo, R. L. López, D. Peña Martínez and O. P. Rafael, "A Low-cost IoT Mobile System for Air Quality Monitoring in Developing Countries, a Study Case in El Salvador," 2023 International Conference on Smart Applications, Communications and Networking (SmartNets), Istanbul, Turkiye, 2023, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/SmartNets58706.2023.10215961.