An OpenAQ Community Impact Story by Matt Lane
Northern Argentina has a diverse geography including portions of the Andes Mountains, its adjacent valleys and canyons, and the tropical forests of the southern Yungas. At the center of the region lies the small province of Tucumán and the capital of San Miguel de Tucumán (often shortened to just Tucumán). Tucumán has historical significance as a congress held in the city proclaimed Argentinian independence in 1816. Finally, as we will discuss further relative to its impacts on air quality, Northern Argentina has a sizable sugarcane industry with more than 60% of the country’s production coming from Tucumán itself.
Sugarcane Biomass Burning in Tucumán
I recently spoke with Rodrigo Gastón Gibilisco, Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric Studies (LEA), a research laboratory within the Institute of Chemistry of Northwestern Argentina (INQUINOA), a joint research institute of CONICET and the National University of Tucumán (UNT). Gibilisco also serves as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Scientific Ambassador in Argentina. I also spoke with Jazmín Elizondo, a PhD student and member of the group in the LEA, to learn more about their work on hazardous air quality in the region.
Rodrigo is the founder of the Breathe2Change Initiative that is addressing air pollution in the Tucumán region by creating a bridge between science, public institutions, and society. In an area with a historical dearth of data, the project generates reliable air quality analysis via low-cost sensors, reference-grade monitors, satellite observations, scientific studies, and open data.
One may assume that Northern Argentina’s picturesque mountainous and forested landscape has clean, crisp air. In fact, Tucumán and its nearby provinces have dangerous PM2.5 air quality levels, especially during the six-month dry, winter season. Rodrigo explains, “In the winter, it can rain black carbon. This is primarily due to sugarcane biomass burning [the burning of sugarcane foliage to clear fields], which has been practiced in the area for more than 100 years.” In one study, the researchers estimated that more than 880 early fatalities/year from the region can be attributed to high PM2.5 exposure during winter.⁴
Because sugarcane production is deep-seated into the economic fabric of the community, it is difficult to change practices even though non-polluting alternatives to biomass burning, such as “green-machinery”, do exist. An example of green harvesting is using an automated chopper harvester which cuts, strips, and chops the cane while leaving the leafy biomass on the ground as organic mulch.
Jazmín describes the situation, “The burning of fields has been normalized over many generations, and oftentimes people are not conscious of the air quality problem. Additionally, the sugarcane industry provides economic livelihoods for many and is close to governmental decision-makers. The green-machinery is more expensive, so it is difficult to spur change.”
The Breathe2Change Initiative
To start tackling the issue, Rodrigo founded the Breathe2Change Initiative in 2021. He says, “I wanted to know exactly how harmful the air quality was and in which areas.” Breathe2Change is now a multi-institutional research collaboration which includes the establishment of the first real-time monitoring network across the northern provinces via ~25 sensors and reference-grade monitors. The initiative has backing from the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as well as an EPIC (the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago) Air Quality Fund grant.
In one study, the team found that PM2.5 concentrations in Tucumán exceeded daily limit recommendations of 15 μg/m³ (US EPA guideline recommendations at the time) on nearly 39% of the measured days.⁵ (Figure 4 below) This high percentage of harmful air days is similar to that of the polluted, industrial megacity of Kolkata, India and much higher than the likes of Los Angeles and Paris.
Interestingly, the study performed a “gravimetric-optical intercomparison” (a method using both mass and light absorption methods) via multiple types of specialized, custom sensors (with different flow rates and one with additional meteorological information) to build a continuous, predictive spatial model for the observed area. They also used satellite-derived aerosol observations to complement the ground-based measurements and help improve the spatial interpretation of pollutant distributions. It revealed a strong correlation between elevated pollutant levels and fire activity likely linked to biomass burning.
Rodrigo also mentions the team’s current research efforts, “We are now developing technologies capable of characterizing airborne particles in real time, with the goal of understanding not only how much particulate matter is present, but also what those particles are made of. This opens new and exciting opportunities for environmental and public health research.”
Support for Open Data
The Breathe2Change initiative is also arming local decision-makers and the broader global community with the collected air quality data. The initiative has enabled a visualization toolset and also uploads the data to OpenAQ, the world’s largest open-source, open-access air quality data set. (Figures 7 and 8 below) Rodrigo explains, “Opening up our data is so important so we can reach more people. As a scientist, I can provide data. But, we need others to help create new stories and enact change for a better, collective future.”