EPA Outdoor Air Quality Data
The data source I choose is EPA Outdoor Air quality data for Austin. EPA has air quality data for most of the cities in the United States from 1980 to present. EPA collects data for Austin using three monitors (Figure 1). EPA calculates the AQI for five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. For each of these pollutants, EPA has established national air quality standards. AQI has a yardstick that runs from 0 to 500. There are six categories to measure air quality; good (0-50), moderate (50-100), unhealthy for sensitive groups (100-150), unhealthy (150-200), very unhealthy (200-250) and hazardous (above 200). The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution. I selected Ozone data, AQI is an index use by EPA to report daily air quality. This report gives concentration of ozone pollutant for every day of the year, daily maximum ozone concentration (ppb), daily AQI value and number of observation each day. Source: https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/download-daily-data . Data for three monitors in Austin is available in KMZ file. KMZ files contain placemarks featuring a custom name; the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates for the location. KMZ files can be opened by Google Earth. You can download daily data report or data summary of one year, the data is available in spreadsheet and pdf format. You can also download data in visualize form. Source: https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-data-aqi-plot
We will use ozone data from EPA to analyze air quality for different time period e.g. before drought and wildfire and after drought and wildfire and compare it with vegetation cover in Bastrop during this time period. Our main purpose will be to see the correlation between the vegetation cover and concentration level of ozone in Austin. For example, during the wildfire September 2011, the concentration of ozone in Austin was high (above 150 ppb) as shown in figure below and air quality was declared unhealthy.
Link: https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-quality-index-report