Purple Air AQI layer as authoritative Living Atlas layer

[BrendanSoulé]

PurpleAir is a provider of consumer-grade air quality sensors that individuals can install at their homes or businesses. The sensors publicly serve air quality data in real time which PurpleAir collects and publishes as a webmap. This data is much more widely available and current than other sources like EPA air monitoring sites.

PurpleAir has an API to download and serve this information but recently placed it behind a paywall with costs that are unaffordable to many users. Having access to accurate local air quality data is crucial for people to assess and mitigate risks associated with poor air exposure. An authoritative live feed of the current PurpleAir AQI available on Living Atlas would provide important information to local agencies, emergency responders, and the public in situations like wildfires where risks extend beyond immediate loss of life or property.

[LisaBerry]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for your suggestion. ArcGIS Living Atlas contains two versions of air quality records sourced by OpenAQ and EPA. These are both open public data, which is a reason they are available within the Living Atlas collection. Fundamentally, Living Atlas is a collection of content by the GIS community for the GIS community, so it is up to the source of a dataset to provide their offering to ArcGIS users. Since this PurpleAir data is a proprietary paid dataset, they would need to host it as an offering to Living Atlas, or they could offer it behind a paywall within ArcGIS Marketplace.