Harmonized, Standardized, and Corrected Crowd-Sourced Low-Cost Sensor PM2.5 Data from Sensor.community and PurpleAir Networks Across Europe

Low-Cost Air Quality Sensors (LCS) are compact, affordable devices designed to measure various air pollutants, including particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Unlike traditional reference monitoring stations, which are large, expensive, and often located in fixed positions, LCSs are more accessible option for air quality monitoring, particularly for community and citizen engagement. LCSs can be installed in diverse locations, including neighborhoods, schools, and community centers. Many LCS networks provide (near) real-time data.LCSs have certain limitations in terms of accuracy and reliability compared to reference monitoring network data, especially when they are citizen-operated. This dataset provides Quality Controlled (QC) PM2.5 measurements from LCSs at two processing levels: raw and corrected, at European scale. These measurements were processed using a framework called FILTER — Framework for Improving Low-Cost Technology Effectiveness and Reliability. FILTER has been applied to PM2.5 data from the two largest citizen-operated LCS networks in Europe: sensor.community (https://sensor.community/en/) and PurpleAir (https://www2.purpleair.com/).The longitude and latitude of each unique sensor location are provided in a separate CSV table called “Sensor_Location”. Users can locate sensor IDs within their region of interest and then identify the desired sensors from the dataset based on the table names. For convenience, the sensors are organized by the country ISO 3166-1 three letter codes (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3). More Information is Provided in Read Me (Data Descriptor) file.DisclaimerIf the original low-cost sensor data from Sensor.Community or PurpleAir is required, we refer users to the original APIs of those sensor networks. This dataset, however, is more suitable for users who need quality-controlled/flagged data along with corrected values at hourly resolution.NILU makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, concerning the provided data and information, including but not limited to any warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. NILU assumes no responsibility or legal liability concerning the data’s accuracy, reliability, completeness, timeliness, or usefulness.