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Project Members

• Michael Hannigan (PhD., PI, Mechanical Engineering )
• Colleen Reid (PhD., PI, Geography)
• Jon Silberstein (Graduate Student, Environmental Engineering)

Detailed Summary

Project Dates: 2021 - Present

On a clear day in Salt Lake County (SLCo) you can see for miles—from the Wasatch Front in the east to the Oquirrhs in the west. However, during wildfires, inversions (wintertime events where cold air gets trapped beneath a layer of warmer air, allowing air pollution to increase), and other periods of high air pollution, it may be hard to even see down the street. Natural disasters like wildfires and dust episodes caused by the drying of the Great Salt Lake, as well as urban pollution, contribute to poor air quality. During summers in Salt Lake, ozone and chemical smog reduce visibility, and during winters, air pollution can build up during inversion events.

Poor air quality can lead to a wide variety of health problems. Since 2009, SLCo has exceeded national air quality standards for small airborne particles called fine particulate matter (PM_2.5). When inhaled, PM_2.5 can irritate the lungs and enter the bloodstream, and can result in asthma and COPD, heart and lung disease, low birthweight and preterm birth, and even cancer. Industrial sources such as refineries and factories, exhaust from cars and buses, and wildfires can all create PM_2.5. Yet PM_2.5 concentrations are not necessarily evenly distributed across SLCo. Westside and West Valley neighborhoods, which are generally closer to PM_2.5 sources, face higher levels of air pollution than their East Side counterparts. Understanding how different pollution sources lead to PM_2.5 in different neighborhoods is essential to creating strategies to decrease pollution in ways that may improve community health.

The ASPIRE project will investigate SLCo’s air pollution and how it affects health. To understand the sources and health impacts of PM_2.5 within SLCo, our group (consisting of researchers from the University of Utah, the University of Colorado, and the ASPIRE National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center) is collaborating with community, city, and county leaders, and trusted community organizations to study local air quality using a combination of air quality monitors and computer modeling. While SLCo already has some air quality monitors, there are often large areas between monitors where the concentrations of pollutants cannot be measured or known. Existing air quality monitors also don’t provide much data about which sources of pollution cause the largest air pollution problems. Working with Westside community representatives, we determined where to place monitors to fill in gaps. These monitors tell us which chemicals are present in PM_2.5 samples, allowing us to find out which sources—like vehicle traffic or wildfires—are contributing to the air pollution in each neighborhood. This information can support community advocacy for solutions that can improve local air quality.

Another goal of this research is to understand how transportation-related policies and technologies can improve SLCo’s air pollution problems. Vehicles cause around 50% of the PM_2.5 in SLCo, making them a big contributor to its air pollution issues. This also makes them a good target for policy intervention. This project will model how vehicle electrification—replacing standard cars, trucks, and semi-trucks with electric versions—can improve SLCo’s air quality and decrease the negative health impacts of air pollution.  This project aims to estimate how electrifying different types of vehicles leads to different air pollution and health impacts, and how these benefits are distributed within and between neighborhoods in SLCo. Cleaner air benefits everyone. This work will identify prominent local sources of PM_2.5 and explore the health impacts of pollution-reducing policies like vehicle electrification.

Other Partners

• Dr. Daniel Mendoza (University of Utah)

Project Funding

• ASPIRE National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center