Government Air Quality Ingesters

WeSense ingests data from government air quality monitoring networks. These are reference-grade instruments operated by environment agencies — the "golden source" for calibrating community sensors and providing authoritative context alongside WeSense data.

Available Ingesters

Profile	Ingester	Sources	Active Stations
govaq-nz	wesense-ingester-govaq-nz	ECan REST API + 7 Hilltop councils	~55
govaq-au	wesense-ingester-govaq-au	NSW, QLD, ACT (+ VIC, SA, TAS when verified)	~165

More regional ingesters (UK, US, EU, Asia, Americas) are planned. See the rollout design for details.

Enabling a Government AQ Ingester

Add the profile to COMPOSE_PROFILES in your .env:

COMPOSE_PROFILES=guardian,tls,govaq-au

Then bring up the stack as normal:

docker compose up -d

The ingester will start polling its data sources automatically.

Configuring Sources (govaq-au)

The Australian ingester has 6 state/territory sources, each independently toggleable. Three are enabled by default (NSW, QLD, ACT). Three are disabled because they need an API key or have unverified endpoints (VIC, SA, TAS).

Toggle sources via environment variables

Add these to your .env to override the defaults:

# These are the defaults — you only need to add lines you want to change
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_NSW=true
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_QLD=true
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_ACT=true
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_VIC=false    # Requires VIC_EPA_API_KEY
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_SA=false     # Endpoint unverified
ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_TAS=false    # Endpoint unverified

To enable Victoria, register for a free API key at portal.api.epa.vic.gov.au and add:

ENABLE_GOVAQ_AU_VIC=true
VIC_EPA_API_KEY=your_key_here

Toggle sources via config file

Alternatively, create a local config override. The docker-compose service mounts ./ingester-govaq-au/config/ into the container:

mkdir -p ingester-govaq-au/config

Copy and edit sources.json from the repository. Set "enabled": true or false per source.

Environment variables take precedence over the config file.

Polling interval

The default poll interval is 15 minutes (900 seconds). Most government sources update hourly, so 15 minutes catches new data promptly without excessive requests. Override with:

GOVAQ_AU_POLL_INTERVAL=900

Configuring Sources (govaq-nz)

The NZ ingester follows the same pattern. Sources are configured in ingester-govaq-nz/config/sources.json or via environment variables:

ENABLE_GOVAQ_NZ_ECAN=true
ENABLE_GOVAQ_NZ_TASMAN=true
# etc.

See the repository for the full source list.

Data Source and Licence

Each reading from a government ingester carries:

• data_source — identifies the specific source, e.g. govaq_au_nsw, govaq_nz_ecan
• data_license — the licence under which the data is published, e.g. CC-BY-4.0, OGL-3.0, open-no-explicit

These fields are part of the signed canonical reading and travel identically via both the live MQTT path and the storage broker archive path (see Ingester Architecture for details on the dual-path identity invariant).

Why Government Stations Matter

Government stations use reference-grade instruments (BAM for PM, chemiluminescence for NOx, UV photometry for ozone) that are periodically audited and calibrated. They provide:

• Cross-calibration — compare WeSense community sensors against nearby reference stations to quantify and correct bias
• Validation — test whether swarm correction algorithms converge toward the reference value
• Context — show the authoritative reading alongside community data

Government stations are sparse but accurate. WeSense sensors are dense but lower accuracy. The two complement each other.