City Solutions Toolkit: Quality assurance/quality control of air quality monitoring data

The presence of air quality monitors and instruments is one of the key indicators in assessing the capacity of air quality management (AQM) of a city. However, having an air quality monitoring in place does not equate to having accurate data. Sharing unsorted raw data publicly must be refrained as this can lead to confusion or panic or create a false sense of security. Proper quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) procedures are part of the requirements of an effective air quality monitoring system (ADB and Clean Air Asia, 2014). In this module you will find: • Summary explanation of the importance of QA/QC in AQM; • Guide on how to ensure the quality of AQ data through QA/QC; and, • Overview of considerations when preparing for the QA/QC process