A mobile sensor network to map carbon dioxide emissions in urban environments

Abstract. A method for directly measuring carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions using a mobile sensor network in cities at fine spatial resolution was developed and tested. First, a compact, mobile system was built using an infrared gas analyzer combined with open-source hardware to control, georeference, and log measurements of CO₂ mixing ratios on vehicles (car, bicycles). Second, two measurement campaigns, one in summer and one in winter (heating season) were carried out. Five mobile sensors were deployed within a 1 × 12. 7 km transect across the city of Vancouver, BC, Canada. The sensors were operated for 3.5 h on pre-defined routes to map CO₂ mixing ratios at street level, which were then averaged to 100  ×  100 m grid cells. The averaged CO₂ mixing ratios of all grids in the study area were 417.9 ppm in summer and 442.5 ppm in winter. In both campaigns, mixing ratios were highest in the grid cells of the downtown core and along arterial roads and lowest in parks and well vegetated residential areas. Third, an aerodynamic resistance approach to calculating emissions was used to derive CO₂ emissions from the gridded CO₂ mixing ratio measurements in conjunction with mixing ratios and fluxes collected from a 28 m tall eddy-covariance tower located within the study area. These measured emissions showed a range of −12 to 226 CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ in summer and of −14 to 163 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ in winter, with an average of 35.1 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ (summer) and 25.9 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ (winter). Fourth, an independent emissions inventory was developed for the study area using buildings energy simulations from a previous study and routinely available traffic counts. The emissions inventory for the same area averaged to 22.06 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ (summer) and 28.76 kg CO₂ ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ (winter) and was used to compare against the measured emissions from the mobile sensor network. The comparison on a grid-by-grid basis showed linearity between CO₂ mixing ratios and the emissions inventory (R² = 0. 53 in summer and R² = 0. 47 in winter). Also, 87 % (summer) and 94 % (winter) of measured grid cells show a difference within ±1 order of magnitude, and 49 % (summer) and 69 % (winter) show an error of less than a factor 2. Although associated with considerable errors at the individual grid cell level, the study demonstrates a promising method of using a network of mobile sensors and an aerodynamic resistance approach to rapidly map greenhouse gases at high spatial resolution across cities. The method could be improved by longer measurements and a refined calculation of the aerodynamic resistance.