Increase Life Safety of Agri-Stakeholders Through IoT-Based Air Pollution Alarming System: Bangladesh Prospect

Abstract

Air pollution is the foremost life risk factor in Bangladesh, causing over 270,000 premature deaths annually and imposing a healthcare burden of approximately $11 billion. Agricultural workers constitute a critically vulnerable group due to prolonged outdoor exposure. This study proposes and validates a wearable, low-cost IoT-based Air Quality Index (AQI) monitoring and alarming system designed to mitigate these risks. The system architecture utilizes an ESP32 microcontroller with sensors suits (PMS5003/MQ135), solar power, MQTT protocol for security, and a cloud-based notification platform. And utilized MIT Apps to visualize the data in real-time to users. A survey of 1,500 agricultural stakeholders identified air pollution as a primary concern, with 54% endorsing a smart wearable alert system as the preferred intervention. The deployed system collected data over 160 days in 2025, revealing that air quality was at "Unhealthy" or worse levels for 40% of the period. Performance validation against a reference Teledyne (TD) T630 analyzer showed a mean difference of only 0.83 µg/m³ and a standard deviation difference of 1.17, confirming high accuracy. It is concluded that this IoT-based proactive alerting framework can significantly enhance life safety for agricultural workers by enabling behavioral adaptation, reducing exposure, and preventing associated morbidity, mortality, and economic losses.