Air Pollution Monitoring
In order to understand how best to improve our air quality, the City has been monitoring air quality throughout all five borough, which helps the City improve its air quality policies and enforcement. DEP also monitors the air quality for pollutants like asbestos during emergencies such as 9/11.
New York City Community Air Survey
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) partners with Queens College to conduct the New York City Community Air Survey (NYCCAS) which measures air pollution at roughly 150 locations in the New York City. This program studies how pollutants from traffic, buildings boilers and furnaces, and other sources impact air quality in different neighborhoods. NYCCAS monitors pollutants that cause health problems such as fine particles, nitrogen oxides, elemental carbon (a marker for diesel exhaust particles), sulfur dioxide and ozone.
Tree Debris Burning Disposal at Floyd Bennett Field
Hurricane Sandy brought down approximately 20,000 trees. The vast majority of the result tree debris was able to be composted or put to another beneficial use. There was a portion of this volume that was disposed of by burning in an air curtain burner and removing as ash. The opacity monitoring results and related information concerning the air curtain burner operation at Floyd Bennett Field can be viewed here.
Air Monitoring in Lower Manhattan
DEP monitored the ambient outdoor air for asbestos in lower Manhattan in response to the World Trade Center disaster, augmenting asbestos sampling performed by the EPA and other federal, state and city agencies.
World Health Organization Database: Outdoor Air Pollution in Cities
The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes global city air pollution data that shows the world's pollution hotspots. Data is available in charts, maps and downloadable spreadsheets