UK Annual Air Quality Report for 2008Date: 17/12/2009
The UK's annual air quality report for 2008 is published today. Bigger and more comprehensive than ever before, this is the latest in a long-running series of annual reports summarising measurements from the UK's national air pollution monitoring networks, operated on behalf of Defra and the Devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It includes detailed pollution data, trends, maps and analyses of the calendar year (January to December) of 2008.
The report, together with the family of UK Air Quality website at www.airquality.co.uk, www.scottishairquality.co.uk, www.welshairquality.co.uk
and www.airqualityni.co.uk
, provides the most comprehensive and complete and up-to-date analytical picture of air pollution in this country.
It may be downloaded in full from http://www.airquality.co.uk/annualreport/index.php
For further information please see the following Defra press release at http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/091217a.htm
Consultation on the transposition of Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for EuropeDate: 13/11/2009
This consultation is seeking views on the proposed approach for transposing into English legislation the provisions of the Council Directive on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (2008/50/EC). The Directive came into force on 11 June 2008 and must be transposed by member states into national legislation by 10 June 2010.
The devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will be carrying out similar consultation in their countries.
The deadline for comments is 29 January 2010.
For more information, please go to http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/airquality-transposition/index.htm
to view the Consultation documentation.
Annual Report SubmissionDate: 12/10/2009
The UK's annual assessment of air quality during 2008 has been completed and submitted to the European Commission. This assessment includes comparisons with the limit and target values within the EU ambient air quality Directives. The assessment is based on a combination of measurement data from the national monitoring networks and the results from national Pollution Climate Mapping models. The results of the assessment are submitted on a standard reporting questionnaire spreadsheet.
The 2008 submission can be downloaded from the Eionet Central Data Repository at the following link http://cdr.eionet.europa.eu/gb/eu/annualair
Information on the EU ambient air quality Directives can be found at the following link http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/legislation/existing_leg.htm
Information on the reporting questionnaire can be found at the following link http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/quality/legislation/reporting.htm
Changes to Daily Measured PM10 and PM2.5 Data on the Air Quality ArchiveDate: 01/10/2009
There have been changes to the way the following parameters are reported on the Air Quality Archive:
- PM10 particulate matter (Daily measured) and
- PM2.5 particulate matter (Daily measured)
A 'field blank' correction - based on filters that have been placed in the sampler but not actually used - has been applied to the measured concentrations. This is intended to improve the accuracy of the data. However, it does mean that any daily-measured PM10 or PM2.5 data downloaded from the Archive before 1st July 2009 might have changed.
The uncorrected data are still available for download as:
- Daily measured PM10 (uncorrected)
or
- Daily measured PM2.5 (uncorrected)
For more information, please see http://www.airquality.co.uk/news/News_Item_on_Changes_to_Daily_Measured_PM-v3.pdf
Revised PM10 Air Quality Index for Reference Equivalent DataDate: 04/08/2009
In the UK over the last two years and more, there has been a steady replacement of old TEOM PM10 monitors with reference equivalent instruments. This has happened both in the national monitoring networks for European Directive compliance, and at the regional and local level for local air quality management purposes.
The current PM10 air quality index for reporting real-time public information from TEOM monitors is not directly transferable to other reference equivalent monitors and therefore requires updating. The results of the PM10 equivalence programme (carried out between November 2004 and January 2006) have been analysed to develop an equation relating old TEOM data to reference equivalent monitors as follows:
Reference equivalent PM10 = TEOM x 1.3 - 2.2494
On this basis the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) have agreed the air quality index for PM10 and breakpoints for “Low”, “Moderate”, “High” or “Very High” pollution can be assigned to old TEOMs or reference equivalent data. For further details of the background to this and proposed changes please see the attached short paper here
Final UK Sustainable Development Air Quality indicator 2008Date: 16/07/2009
2008 was a largely unremarkable year for air pollution. Downwards trends in PM10 particulate concentrations continued at both urban background and roadside locations, whilst urban ozone levels continued the steady increase seen in previous years. Further detailed information can be found here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/090716a.htm
There is very little change from the provisional figures published in January 2009.
The openair projectDate: 20/05/2009
The Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds is pleased to announce the launch of the openair project. The 3-year openair project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) with additional funding from Defra, AEA and several local authorities.
The project aims to make innovative, open-source data analysis tools available for free to the air quality community. These tools are designed for the analysis of air pollution data and dispersion model output. The underlying theme of the project is that considerably more useful information can be gleaned from air quality data using tools specifically designed for the purpose than is usually the case. As such, the tools should have wide appeal from central and local government, consultancies, regulators and university researchers. Many of these tools would normally require specialist visualisation or statistical software but have been made available in the highly developed open-source statistical software called R.
The website at http://www.openair-project.org provides more details on the project and a pre-release version of the openair “package” that users can test ahead of its final release in October 2011. The project will be continuously developed over the next few years and we are keen to receive user feedback to ensure the tools are of maximum benefit to the community.
AEA and ITS are working to apply these tools to AURN data presented on the AQ Archive. This will allow web users a greater range of functionality, visualisation and analysis when interrogating the national network measurements.
Contact: David Carslaw (d.c.carslaw@its.leeds.ac.uk)
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 The Welsh Assembly Government issues revised Technical and Policy guidance to local authorities on improving air qualityDate: 14/05/2009
The Welsh Assembly Government has issued revised guidance to all local authorities in Wales on managing air quality. Under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995, all Local Authorities have a duty to manage air quality. The guidance is intended to support authorities in their
efforts to tackle poor air quality and to fulfil their statutory duties under the Act. The guidance should be taken into account by all local authority departments involved in local air quality management (LAQM), including environmental health, corporate services, planning, economic development and transport planning. The revised policy guidance document is accompanied by four new practice documents covering; assessment of air quality measures, implementing low emission zones and two documents on reducing emissions from vehicles. The revised policy guidance, issued to all local authorities in Wales and new technical guidance document, issued to all local authorities in the UK can be found at http://www.wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside/epq/airqualitypollution/laqmguidance/?lang=en
Updated tools for LAQM purposes can be found at www.airquality.co.uk/archive/laqm/tools.php
Update to the VCM web portalDate: 06/05/2009
A small error in the model equation has been identified and was corrected on 28th April 2009. This error concerned the temperature and pressure correction applied to the reported TEOM concentrations. This resulted in an underestimation of the TEOMVCM concentration of approximately 4% at background locations; an analysis of the impact of this error on the 2007 AURN measurements can be seen here
.
Concentrations calculated using the VCM before this date should therefore be recalculated. To help with this process the correction xls spreadsheets that have been generated using the VCM Web Portal have been regenerated and can be downloaded from www.volatile-correction-model.info/FinishedCorrections.aspx
Unfortunately, the details for all the corrections made are not available to us, specifically, if you made more than one correction in a visit to the web portal then only the last correction made will have been saved. We apologise for the inconvenience caused. This error affects the application of the VCM to TEOM measurements through the VCM web portal. It does not affect the underlying basis of the VCM and its proven equivalence to the EU reference method.
Defra submits UK application to the European Commission for an extension to meet PM10 air quality limitsDate: 24/04/2009
Defra has today (24 April 2009) submitted the UK's notification to the European Commission to secure additional time to meet the limit values for PM10 for eight UK zones/agglomerations in accordance with Council Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality.
Under EU legislation, the UK is divided into zones and agglomerations (areas with populations of more than 250,000) and annual compliance reports are submitted on this basis. Levels of PM10 have been falling across the UK. However, in small parts of eight administrative areas, breaches of the PM10 limit values have been reported to the European Commission since they came into force in 2005 and so additional time to meet the required limits is needed.
The extension would enable current and planned measures to take effect to reduce PM10 levels to within the EU limits by the extended deadline of 2011. Of particular importance in delivering improvements are the EU vehicle emission standards and other traffic related measures, such as encouraging lower emission vehicles, and regional or local measures promoting greater use of public transport and smoother traffic flows. The commitment in this week's budget announcement to introduce measures to incentivise uptake of HGV's and buses that meet the latest EU vehicle emission standards will also deliver valuable improvements. The application follows a public consultation on the content of the UK's application for an extension that closed on 10 March. A summary of responses to that was published by Defra on 8 April.
The application comprises a series of detailed forms and a Technical Report, which are available at: www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/air/airquality/eu-int/eu-directives/airqual-directives/notification.htm
The Commission has 9 months to assess the application.
Defra issues revised Technical and Policy guidance to local authorities on improving air qualityDate: 19/02/2009
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has today issued revised guidance to all local authorities on managing air quality. Local Authorities will find these documents helpful in assessing and implementing measures to improve air quality in their area. All Local Authorities have a duty to manage air quality under the Environment Act 1995. The revised technical and policy guidance documents are accompanied by four new practice documents covering assessment of air quality measures, implementing low emission zones and two documents on reducing emissions from vehicles.
The revised guidance and new technical guidance documents can be found at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/air/airquality/local/guidance/index.htm
. Updated tools for LAQM purposes can be found at www.airquality.co.uk/archive/laqm/tools.php
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Air quality indicator for sustainable development 2008 provisional resultsDate: 12/02/2009
The air quality indicator is one of the 68 indicators of the Government's Sustainable Development Strategy. It measures annual levels of pollution from particulates (PM10) and ozone (O3), the two pollutants thought to have the greatest health impacts, as well as the number of days on which levels of any one of a basket of five pollutants were 'moderate or higher'.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/090129a.htm
The main results are:
- Urban background particulate levels averaged 20 microgrammes per cubic metre (µg m-3) in 2008 compared to 22 µg m-3 in 2007. These levels have fluctuated in recent years, although there has been an overall decreasing trend since 1993, the first year for which data were available.
- Roadside particulate levels averaged 28 µg m-3 in 2008 compared to 29 µg m-3 in 2007. There has been a general downward trend since the series began in 1997, although this decline has slowed since 2001 and has been subject to increased fluctuation.
- Urban background ozone levels averaged 60 µg m-3 in 2008 compared to 57 µg m-3 in 2007 and 44 µg m-3 in 1992. These levels have shown an overall increasing long term trend since 1992, the first year for which data were available.
- Rural ozone levels* averaged 70 µg m-3 in 2008 compared to 68 µg m-3 in 2007 and 59 µg m-3 in 1987. There is no clear long term trend.
- In urban areas, air pollution in 2008 was recorded as moderate or higher on 27 days on average per site, compared with 24 days in 2007, and 59 days in 1993. This series has shown a high degree of year-on-year variability.
- In rural areas, air pollution in 2008 was moderate or higher for 47 days on average per site, compared with 28 in 2007. This series has also fluctuated significantly over time.
- These results are provisional and are therefore subject to change. Final results will be available in the spring.
* Measured as the daily maximum 8-hour running mean
Consultantion on UK application to the European Commission for extension to meet air quality limits for PM10 launched on 27 January 2009Date: 27/01/2009
A consultation on the UK application to the European Commission for an extension to meet air quality limits for
particulate matter (PM10) was launched on 27 January 2009.
The consultation can be found at
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/air-quality/index.htm and will close on 10 March 2009.
This consultation has been prepared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government. The Scottish Government is carrying out an identical exercise in Scotland.
Air Pollution in the UK: 2007 ReportDate: 08/01/2009
The latest in a long-running series of annual reports on the UK's air quality is published today; this summarises measurements from large-scale national air pollution monitoring networks operated on behalf of Defra and the Devolved Administrations. It includes data and analyses from the calendar year (January to December) of 2007. The reports home page and interactive 2007 report can now be seen at http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/annualreport/annualreport.php
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