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Tracking Odors using Participatory Science and a Smartphone App
Citation:
Duvall, R., E. Thoma, M. MacDonald, C. Seppanen, AND S. Arunachalam. Tracking Odors using Participatory Science and a Smartphone App. AGU Fall Meeting, Chicago, IL, December 12 - 16, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Many communities are impacted by odorous and air toxic VOC emissions that can contribute to odor issues and poor air quality. This presentation will provide an overview of EPA ORD's work on developing the Odor Explore App which is a participatory science project that helps communities report unpleasant odors. This abstract will be submitted to the AGU Fall Meeting 2022 for a session on "Cumulative Exposures and Community-Based Science: Odor, Chemicals, Air Pollutants, Noise, and More".
Description:
Many communities are burdened with unpleasant odors from air pollution sources including industrial facilities and operations, chemical plants, landfills, animal rendering plants, and many others. A variety of compounds can cause odors such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and sulfur compounds (e.g., mercaptans, hydrogen sulfide). While not all odor compounds are health hazards, persistent odors can have negative effects on the quality of life potentially leading to aggravation, stress, worry, anxiety, fear, and general concerns about exposures. Odors are particularly hard to address because they can be unpredictable, intermittent, and vary in duration and intensity. Agencies that handle odor complaints face challenges in identifying and acting on complaints due to limited resources and a lack of odor tracking and identification tools. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is developing a smartphone app called “Odor Explore” that allows the public to report odors as they are experienced. Communities can then view crowdsourced odor reports on a map. An important feature of this app is an “Odor Wheel” that classifies odors into broad categories (such as fuel or chemical mixture) and then divides those categories into more specific odor types. The Odor Explore app is being piloted in the Rubbertown industrial area in Louisville, Kentucky. This area has faced ongoing issues with odors and the neighboring community is also impacted by environmental justice concerns. This presentation will provide an overview of the Odor Explore app, participatory science efforts to pilot the app, and future plans to use the odor reports to collect targeted measurements associated with the odor events.