Latest News

Publication of Air Pollution: Action in a Changing Climate

Last updated on: 04/03/2010

Defra and the devolved administrations have today published the document 'Air Pollution: Action in a Changing Climate'.

This 'forward look' document highlights the additional health benefits that can be achieved through closer integration of air quality and climate change policies in future. It doesn’t replace the current air quality strategy (AQS) but accounts for the rapid development of climate policy since the AQS was published in 2007. Defra is now considering how to take forward the key messages in this document, which will of course help to shape the direction of the next air quality strategy.

NEW Emission Factor Toolkit, NOx to NO2 calculator, background maps and future-year projection factors

Last updated on: 12/02/2010

A number of changes have recently been made to the Local Air Quality Management tools available on the Northern Ireland Air Quality website at www.airqualityni.co.uk/laqm_sca.php. The new tools should be used for new work. If work has already been started using the old set of tools, it is not necessary to go back and repeat the work unless the local authority believes that this would be appropriate. So long as models have been appropriately verified against local measurements, the updates to the tools should not invalidate work already carried out, even though precise results would be different. The changes are as follows:

1) The Emission Factor Toolkit (EFT) has been updated to use the DfTs latest vehicle emission factors (published in 2009). This allows modellers to calculate vehicular emissions in line with the latest predictions. It is possible for users to incorporate the emissions that they calculate using the EFT into most dispersion models (but not screening tools such as DMRB).

2) The NOx to NO2 calculator has been updated. These changes take account of more recent predictions of oxidant levels across the UK and also use revised default values for primary NO2 (fNO2) (as shown within the spreadsheet).

3) The national maps of background air pollutant concentrations have been updated to take account of more recent emissions predictions and updated methods. A short report describing the principal changes between the two sets of maps is included on the website along with the maps.

4) The sector-removal tool for calculating sector-adjusted background nitrogen dioxide concentrations has been updated following changes to the background mapping methodology.

5) The future-year projection factors for roadside monitoring data contained in Box 2.1 of LAQM.TG(09) have been updated.

All of these tools can only be applied to data from the year 2008 onward. A FAQ on modelling conditions prior to 2008 will follow soon.

If local authorities require any help or clarification they should contact the Review and Assessment Helpdesk.

Consultation document on draft Air Quality Standards Regulations (NI) 2010

Last updated on: 08/02/2010

The Department of the Environment has issued a consultation document including draft Air Quality Standards Regulations (NI) 2010. The Regulations will transpose Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe. The closing date for comments is 1st April 2010.

Click here to download the Consultation document. (97 KB DOCX)
Published Date: 08/02/2010

Air Pollution in Northern Ireland - 2008

Last updated on: 09/12/2009

This brochure is the seventh in a series of annual reports on air quality in Northern Ireland. It provides a summary of air quality monitoring carried out on behalf of Government and by District Councils during 2008. It is also available with previous issues in the Reports section of the website.

Revised PM10 Air Quality Index for Reference Equivalent Data

Last updated on: 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 2008

Last updated on: 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/environment/statistics/airqual/download/pdf/20090716ns.pdf

There is very little change from the provisional figures published in January 2009.

The openair project

Last updated on: 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)

Update to the VCM web portal

Last updated on: 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.