Using pyaqsapi

For those who are already familiar with using RAQSAPI then the pyaqsapi API should feel familiar with a few minor differences regarding how the data is returned.

By default data is returned as a pandas Data Frames . Exported functions from pyaqsapi have a parameter RETURN_HEADER, by default this parameter is False. When False functions simply return the requested data as a pandas Data Frame. If RETURN_HEADER is manually set to True a list of AQSAPI_V2 python 3 objects are returned. Use the get_data() class method to retrieve the data and the get_header() class method to retrieve header information.

Sign up and setting up user credentials with the pyaqsapi library

If you have not already done so you will need to sign up with AQS Data Mart using aqs_sign_up function, this function takes one input, “email,” which is a python 3 character object, that represents the email address that you want to use as a user credential to the AQS Data Mart service. After a successful call to aqs_sign_up an email message will be sent to the email address provided with a new Data Mart key which will be used as a credential key to access the Data Mart API. The aqs_sign_up function can also be used to regenerate a new key for an existing user, to generate a new key simply call the aqs_sign_up function with the parameter “email” set to an existing account. A new key will be e-mailed to the account given.

The credentials used to access the Data Mart API service are stored in as a python global variable that needs to be set every time the pyaqsapi module is loaded or the key is changed. Without valid credentials, the Data Mart server will reject any request sent to it. The key used with Data Mart is a key and is not a password, so the pyaqsapi package does not treat the key as a password; this means that the key is stored in plain text and there are no attempts to encrypt Data Mart credentials as would be done for a username and password combination. The key that is supplied to use with Data Mart is not intended for authentication but only account monitoring. Each time pyaqsapi is loaded and before using any of it’s functions use the aqs_credentials function to enter in the user credentials so that pyaqsapi can access the AQS Data Mart server.

Both pyaqsapi and RAQSAPI use the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Service DataMart to retrieve data. The same credentials can be used for access to either project. Note however, that AQS and AQS DataMart are similar and related data sources, however the credentials used to access AQS are not the same as those used to access AQS DataMart.

Note

The credentials used to access AQS Data Mart API are not the same as the credentials used to access AQS. AQS users who do not have access to the AQS Data Mart will need to create new credentials. However, you may use the same credentials used in RAQSAPI in pyaqsapi since RAQSAPI ewes the the same AQS Data Mart API as pyaqsapi.