Pollution

Air Quality

It is well documented that air quality can affect human health. Therefore it is important to measure current levels and attempt to reduce public exposure to air pollution, where required. It is important to measure air pollution at a local level for the following reasons:

• To establish whether the air quality limit values, target values and objectives set by European Union Directives and the UK’s own Air Quality Strategy are met in the area.
• To provide information to the public, on air quality in their area.
• So that air quality can be taken into account when making decisions on planning applications, for new developments or roads.
• To fulfil Local Authorities’ obligations under Part IV of theEnvironment Act 1995, regarding Local Air Quality Management.
  To find out whether changes intended to improve air quality are having an effect.

Air pollution levels have been monitored in the UK for over 100 years. In the early years, monitoring was based on simple sampler-based techniques. However, since the 1970s and 1980s, the technology has been available to measure many air pollutants on a real-time basis, and automatic air quality monitoring is now widely used.