Applications of Grid-Based Atmospheric Environment Monitors in Regional Air Quality Management

With accelerating industrialization and urbanization, air pollution has become a prominent issue affecting public health and sustainable development. Traditional national control monitoring stations, while accurate, have limited coverage and high construction and maintenance costs, making it challenging to meet the current demand for fine-grained, real-time, and comprehensive air quality management. Grid-based atmospheric monitoring, as a "low-cost, high-density, wide-coverage" approach, is gradually becoming an important complementary method for air pollution prevention and control in China.

The core concept of grid monitoring is to divide cities or industrial parks into small grids (typically 1–3 km² each) and deploy micro or small monitoring stations within each grid, achieving "one network, one map, one plan" management of air quality. This approach captures localized pollution hotspots, transmission paths, and sudden emissions that traditional stations may miss, providing high spatiotemporal resolution data for precise pollution control and source tracing.

Why Grid Monitoring Is a Practical Choice for Air Quality Management

Traditional national standard stations use large analyzers, with single-station investments often exceeding millions of yuan, requiring fixed sites, air-conditioned rooms, and dedicated personnel, which limits large-scale deployment. In contrast, grid monitoring stations are modular, low-power, and cost only 1/5–1/10 of a national standard station, while enabling continuous automatic operation, remote transmission, and centralized management.

In practice, grid monitoring shows clear advantages in:

• Detecting micro pollution sources around industrial parks, enterprise boundaries, construction dust, and major traffic roads;

• Identifying accumulation areas and transmission channels during heavy pollution events;

• Supporting pollution source tracing and accountability;

• Providing data for differentiated control, staggered production, and emergency emission reduction;

• Enhancing public environmental awareness and engagement.

The national "14th Five-Year Plan for Ecological and Environmental Protection" and various local blue sky campaigns emphasize accelerating grid-based and micro-station construction, forming a multi-level monitoring network of "national control—provincial control—municipal control—district control—grid."

Core Advantages of Nexisense SGA-500A-AQI Grid Atmospheric Environment Monitors

The Nexisense SGA-500A-AQI series is designed for large-scale grid deployment with high cost-effectiveness. It combines high-precision electrochemical, optical, and laser sensors, achieving PPB-level resolution comparable to traditional analyzers while significantly lowering procurement and maintenance barriers.

• Supports standard "four gases and two dusts" eight parameters (CO, SO₂, NO₂, O₃, PM10, PM2.5, temperature, humidity);

• Expandable to over 10 parameters, including NO, H₂S, TVOC, CO₂, NH₃, noise, wind speed/direction, and pressure;

• Modular sensor design allows onsite addition, removal, or replacement;

• Built-in independent DTU supports TCP/IP network transmission, compliant with national air monitoring substation protocols;

• Data protected against lightning and uploaded to the cloud for real-time analysis, storage, verification, and visualization;

• Full-range temperature and humidity compensation and automatic calibration ensure long-term data traceability;

  
  

• Low-power design supports solar or mains power, suitable for remote, unattended operation;

• Local data caching allows automatic retransmission after network interruptions, preventing data loss.

Compared to some low-end microstations, Nexisense devices provide superior accuracy, consistency, and stability; compared to high-end analyzers, they offer overwhelming advantages in cost and deployment density.

Typical Applications and Deployment Practices

1. Urban Fine-Grained Management: Deploy grid stations in city centers, transport hubs, residential areas, schools, and hospitals to monitor air quality in densely populated areas and provide timely health alerts.

2. Industrial Parks and Enterprise Boundary Monitoring: Set up boundary and sensitive-point stations around key polluting industries (chemical, steel, coating, printing) to dynamically monitor unorganized emissions and provide over-limit alerts.

3. Dust Pollution Control: Deploy PM10/PM2.5 and meteorological sensors in construction sites and road dust hotspots, using wind data to trace dust sources accurately.

4. VOC Control: Add TVOC modules in petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and coating-intensive areas to track spatiotemporal distribution of characteristic pollutants.

5. Heavy Pollution Emergency Response: Grid data quickly identifies high pollution areas, supporting orange/red alerts and verifying emission reduction effectiveness.

In practice, grid spacing is recommended at 1–3 km, adjusted based on pollution sources and terrain. Installation height is typically 3–10 meters, avoiding trees, buildings, and local heat islands.

System Integration and Data Value Mining

Nexisense monitors integrate seamlessly with atmospheric big data platforms via standard protocols, enabling:

• Real-time aggregation and visualization of multi-station data;

• Spatial analysis with pollution heatmaps, contour maps, and rose diagrams;

• Historical trend comparison and anomaly alerts;

• Source tracing analysis combining meteorology and emission inventory data;

• Mobile and large-screen display for decision-making and public access.

Long-term high-resolution data helps environmental agencies understand pollution sources, transmission patterns, and control effectiveness, providing scientific support for differentiated management and industrial layout optimization.

FAQ

1. How does grid monitoring differ from national standard stations? Grid stations are low-cost, high-density, wide-coverage, ideal for capturing localized pollution; national stations offer the highest precision but are fewer, mainly for regional background assessment.
2. Can Nexisense monitors meet environmental assessment accuracy requirements? Core parameters reach PPB-level precision with good consistency versus national stations, suitable for grid-based management and auxiliary assessment.
3. What parameters can be monitored? Standard four gases (CO, SO₂, NO₂, O₃) + two dusts (PM2.5, PM10) + temperature and humidity, with optional NO, TVOC, H₂S, CO₂, NH₃, noise, and meteorological parameters.
4. How is data transmitted and accessed? Built-in DTU uploads via TCP/IP, supporting national standard protocols for direct integration with provincial, municipal, and district platforms.
5. Does the device support solar power? Yes, low-power design is compatible with solar + battery, suitable for remote or off-grid long-term operation.
6. How is data traceability ensured? Onsite calibration, automatic temperature/humidity compensation, and data caching, combined with platform auditing, ensure data quality.
7. How much space is needed for grid stations? Microstations are compact, pole or wall-mounted, occupying less than 1㎡ with minimal site requirements.
8. What is the main value of grid monitoring for air management? Provides high spatiotemporal resolution data to support pollution source tracing, precise control, performance evaluation, and public oversight—an essential technology for fine-grained pollution management.

Conclusion

Grid-based atmospheric monitoring represents a key shift from "points" to "surfaces" and from "coarse" to "fine" in environmental monitoring technology. Nexisense SGA-500A-AQI series offers cost-effective, reliable performance, flexible configuration, and stable transmission, providing cities, parks, and enterprises with practical high-density air quality monitoring solutions. It exposes pollution hotspots, supports scientific decision-making, precise pollution control, accountability, and public participation. Amid the ongoing blue sky campaigns and steady progress toward carbon neutrality, grid monitoring is the critical bridge connecting monitoring endpoints with governance. Choosing professional, stable, and economical grid devices contributes to sustained regional air quality improvement and cleaner air for the public.