Developing a Portable Station to Assess Climate Change and Air Quality in the Central Peruvian Andes
Open Access
- Author:
- De Marchis, Antonio
- Area of Honors:
- Electrical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Julio Urbina, Thesis Supervisor
Julio Urbina, Thesis Honors Advisor
Tim Kane, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- sensors
Peru
Andes
climate change
air quality
weather
electrical engineering
climatology
agriculture
Arduino
microcontroller
battery
temperature
humidity
relative humidity
particulate matter
PM
South America
developing nations
carbon dioxide
water vapor
solar power
solar energy
instrumentation
portable
weather station
rural - Abstract:
- This study seeks to develop a portable sensor network tailored specifically to the needs of two agricultural communities in the Central Andes of Peru. The research begins with a broad survey of Peru’s climatic state through the lens of global climate change, epitomized by the effects of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation on each of Peru’s three areas: coast, jungle, and highlands, the last of which the Junín region partly comprises. Upon more deeply examining the circumstances pervading Junín, the study turns to the residents of Sicaya and Huayao, who offer insight into their climate-related experiences and adaptations (both personal and agricultural) necessitated by increasingly unpredictable climate patterns and meteorological events. Their testimony warrants consideration of Peru’s available tools that assess lower atmospheric phenomena: radar-based instruments studying the ionosphere and in situ devices measuring variables directly. However, the still-ambiguous link between upper and lower atmosphere climate change combined with the stationary and sparse nature of existing sensors compels the design and initial testing of a portable, independently powered system measuring three classes of variables: temperature and relative humidity, particulate matter concentrations and size distributions, and greenhouse gas concentrations. The design considers the need for low cost and ease of use in including an independently operating handheld particle counter, a voltage-outputting temperature and humidity probe and gas analyzer, an Arduino Mega controller, and a pair of lithium batteries charged via solar energy. Extenuating circumstances prevent initial testing from fully verifying the system’s feasibility in Central Andean operation; nevertheless, the particle counter and gas analyzer demonstrate potential applicational reliability. The study concludes by detailing a future testing regimen that must necessarily precede full system deployment in Sicaya or Huayao.