Hampton Roads Health & Air Quality: Monitoring Air Quality using MODIS and CALIPSO Data in Conjunction with Socioeconomic Data to Map Air Pollution in Hampton Roads Virginia

Situated along Virginia’s southeastern coast, Hampton Roads is a historic and modern hub for coal storage and transportation. When inhaled, aerosols like coal dust can cause respiratory and cardiovascular issues, raising concerns among community members about the potential human health risks associated with particulate matter (PM) pollution. For this project, NASA DEVELOP partnered with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to determine the feasibility of using NASA Earth observations to better understand the distribution of aerosols across the region. This project incorporated data from NASA’s Terra/Aqua MODIS and CALIPSO CALIOP satellite sensors with ground monitors to observe aerosol optical depth (AOD), the vertical distribution of pollutants, and air quality trends over time. Leveraging both satellite and sociodemographic data, we mapped the spatial distribution of pollutants across the entire region—something the Virginia DEQ previously struggled to measure. Thus, we identified areas experiencing disproportionately high aerosol concentration—with historically marginalized communities near coal facilities being the most consistently at-risk. This analysis proved to be moderately feasible: it provided the Virginia DEQ with important resources in understanding spatial air pollution trends and helped inform future sensor placements. However, current Earth observations are not sufficiently accurate to act as primary methods for ground-level PM monitoring in Hampton Roads; a joint approach combining in situ monitors and satellite data proved to be the most effective for this region.