1001 Smart Cities
🇬🇭 Accra

Breathe Accra: One Air Sensor per Municipal Assembly

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 1 sourced claim · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

1 sourced claim on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

Every municipal assembly in the metropolitan area has a sensor, and the network passed fifty in 2026. No reading crosses a line and produces a consequence: assemblies discuss the numbers and hope to enforce a burning bylaw.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byBreathe Accra / GhanaAQ (University of Cape Coast) with Greater Accra municipal assemblies and Ghana EPA
Scale🗺️ Regional
FundingClean Air Fund; Breathe Cities

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 7 more in Accra · 🌫️ Air quality guide · 🌱 Environment projects

Ghana's EPA regulates air nationally; Accra's dense measurement layer is Breathe Accra, run by a University of Cape Coast team on Clean Air Fund money. From 2022 it put one Clarity sensor in each municipal assembly of the metropolitan area, passing fifty in 2026. No ambient threshold triggers a restriction - assemblies discuss the readings and hope to enforce open-burning bylaws.

Live 📅 since 2022

📊 Impact

A peer-reviewed colocation study in Accra put the EPA's low-cost network at a daily average PM2.5 of 23.4 ug/m3 over 2018-2021, 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline of 15, across 11,001 valid days. The same study tested three sensor brands against a reference Teledyne T640 and found the Clarity Node-S used here the least accurate, with a mean absolute error of 13.68 ug/m3 before correction, against 3.04 for QuantAQ and 4.54 for PurpleAir. Breathe Accra reports passing fifty sensors in May 2026, after thirteen municipal assemblies received three more each.

🎓 Lesson

Accra measures more than most African cities and can still act on almost none of it. Ghana's 2025 air quality regulations bind industry to install controls and report emissions, but no reading crosses a line and produces a consequence by itself; the lever the assemblies name is a bylaw against open burning that an officer must take to court. The sensors are also the cheap kind that a peer-reviewed test found needs local correction to be trusted.

🌱 EnvironmentAir qualitySensors & IoTHealth & careOpen data

Sources

↗ Clarity - Breathe Accra: continuous urban air quality monitoringVendor and operator account: led by Prof. Kofi Amegah's team at the University of Cape Coast under the GhanaAQ project (started 2019), network deployed early 2022, 15 Clarity Node-S sensors, one per municipal assembly, partners include Ghana EPA and Ghana Health Service, funded by the Clean Air Fund.
↗ MyJoyOnline - Municipal assemblies gain real-time pollution data as Breathe Accra expands (30 May 2026)Phase two: thirteen municipal assemblies each get three more sensors, taking Accra past fifty; funding from Breathe Cities. An assembly officer names the intended lever - open-burning bylaws, prosecuted in court. The article's claim to be the sub-region's largest such network is not independently verified and is not repeated here.
↗ Environ. Sci. Technol. (2023) - Low-cost sensor intercomparison, correction factors and 2+ years of PM2.5 monitoring in AccraPublished 22 March 2023 archived copyPeer-reviewed. Ghana EPA deployed 17 Clarity Node-S Gen I across Accra from May 2018; network daily mean PM2.5 23.4 ug/m3 (1.6x the WHO daily guideline) over 11,001 valid days; colocation against a reference Teledyne T640 found Clarity Node-S the least accurate of three brands (MAE 13.68 ug/m3) before correction.
↗ EPA Ghana - Air Quality PortalThe regulator's public real-time portal (Accra station shown: Achimota Interchange), with a six-band AQI scale and Ghana's standards of 35 ug/m3 PM2.5 and 70 ug/m3 PM10. Verified loading 1 Aug 2026. Compliance standards, not automatic triggers.
↗ Ghana News Agency - Air quality management regulations passed into law (Sept 2025)Published 6 September 2025Environmental Protection (Air Quality Management) Regulations, 2025 (LI 2507): industry must install pollution controls and monitor emissions, and an Air Quality Information Management System is required. No ambient index threshold with an automatic consequence is described.
Show 1 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ EPIC / University of Chicago - How air quality data is driving policy action in GhanaPublished 9 April 2026Funder account, independent of Breathe Accra. Confirms LI 2507 and the revision of national standards; its own monitoring grant built a hybrid network in Tema, not Accra - kept out of this entry.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2022. 4 of 6 sources carry a publication date, from 22 March 2023 to 30 May 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. PubMed Central (U.S. National Library of Medicine) · researchEnviron. Sci. Technol. (2023) - Low-cost sensor intercomparison, correction factors and 2+ years of PM2.5 monitoring in Accra
  2. Ghana News Agency · pressGhana News Agency - Air quality management regulations passed into law (Sept 2025)
  3. University of Chicago · researchEPIC / University of Chicago - How air quality data is driving policy action in Ghana
  4. MyJoyOnline (Multimedia Group) · pressMyJoyOnline - Municipal assemblies gain real-time pollution data as Breathe Accra expands (30 May 2026)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Entered the record

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 1 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 1 addressable claim, 6 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 1

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-bb9cf60f5b32d41f quantitative
A peer-reviewed colocation study in Accra put the EPA's low-cost network at a daily average PM2.5 of 23.4 ug/m3 over 2018-2021, 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline of 15, across 11,001 valid days.
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The entry names this colocation study as the peer-reviewed source that measured the network average against a reference Teledyne T640 instrument.
Caveat
The same study found the Clarity Node-S used here the least accurate of three brands, with a mean absolute error of 13.68 ug/m3 before correction.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2023) - Low-cost sensor intercomparison, correction factors and 2+ years of PM2.5 monitoring in Accra
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-source-dates effective 2026-08-01 · created 2026-08-20

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:02aacca506206409bf29827840641f882f140fa5ab74bc40edf4e5d97e0f6ab0
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
1
of 1 claims mapped
6
source dossiers
4
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Breathe Accra / GhanaAQ (University of Cape Coast) with Greater Accra municipal assemblies and Ghana EPA
Actor types
research, city-government, national-government
Funding model
grant
Funding description
Clean Air Fund; Breathe Cities
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

6 source dossiers

Clarity - Breathe Accra: continuous urban air quality monitoring clarity.io · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-44e8f0ee0e95937f
Publisher
Name not classified · clarity.io
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Vendor and operator account: led by Prof. Kofi Amegah's team at the University of Cape Coast under the GhanaAQ project (started 2019), network deployed early 2022, 15 Clarity Node-S sensors, one per municipal assembly, partners include Ghana EPA and Ghana Health Service, funded by the Clean Air Fund.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
MyJoyOnline - Municipal assemblies gain real-time pollution data as Breathe Accra expands (30 May 2026) myjoyonline.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-c0978da74d4ce317
Publisher
Name not classified · myjoyonline.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-05-30
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Phase two: thirteen municipal assemblies each get three more sensors, taking Accra past fifty; funding from Breathe Cities. An assembly officer names the intended lever - open-burning bylaws, prosecuted in court. The article's claim to be the sub-region's largest such network is not independently verified and is not repeated here.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Environ. Sci. Technol. (2023) - Low-cost sensor intercomparison, correction factors and 2+ years of PM2.5 monitoring in Accra pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-6e8331f3522a8530
Publisher
Name not classified · pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-03-22
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2025-02-04
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Peer-reviewed. Ghana EPA deployed 17 Clarity Node-S Gen I across Accra from May 2018; network daily mean PM2.5 23.4 ug/m3 (1.6x the WHO daily guideline) over 11,001 valid days; colocation against a reference Teledyne T640 found Clarity Node-S the least accurate of three brands (MAE 13.68 ug/m3) before correction.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
EPA Ghana - Air Quality Portal aqi-gh.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-cb1fd0a135cb9ebc
Publisher
Name not classified · aqi-gh.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The regulator's public real-time portal (Accra station shown: Achimota Interchange), with a six-band AQI scale and Ghana's standards of 35 ug/m3 PM2.5 and 70 ug/m3 PM10. Verified loading 1 Aug 2026. Compliance standards, not automatic triggers.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Ghana News Agency - Air quality management regulations passed into law (Sept 2025) gna.org.gh · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-1024a67d2d38d818
Publisher
Name not classified · gna.org.gh
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-09-06
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Environmental Protection (Air Quality Management) Regulations, 2025 (LI 2507): industry must install pollution controls and monitor emissions, and an Air Quality Information Management System is required. No ambient index threshold with an automatic consequence is described.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
EPIC / University of Chicago - How air quality data is driving policy action in Ghana climate.uchicago.edu · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-bec5f21f40e9235d
Publisher
Name not classified · climate.uchicago.edu
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-04-09
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-01
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Funder account, independent of Breathe Accra. Confirms LI 2507 and the revision of national standards; its own monitoring grant built a hybrid network in Tema, not Accra - kept out of this entry.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇮🇩 Court-Ordered Air Quality Monitoring · Jakarta Both dense networks whose readings trigger nothing automatically - Jakarta got its from a court, Accra from a donor. 🇳🇵 Kathmandu Metropolitan Air Quality Monitoring Dashboard · Kathmandu Nearest peer by size and youth: Kathmandu's nodes are city-run, Accra's are university-run on grant money. 🇺🇸 Houston's Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring Network · Houston Both networks run on outside money rather than a city budget line — Accra's on a Clean Air Fund grant, not municipal funds.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision📖 Air quality index (AQI)📖 Low-emission zone📖 Open data
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Breathe Accra: One Air Sensor per Municipal Assembly” — Accra, Ghana. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/accra-air-quality-monitoring/ (last verified 2026-08-01). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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