News Archive 2007

The Institute of Air Quality Management website has had a facelift. The new site goes live on Monday 16 July. The new look site has been designed to be more user friendly than the old site. It was felt that the old site did not really attract members to browse it regularly and that by making a fresh start some of the cobwebs could be blown away.

The Institute is making a determined effort to make the new site an active and vibrant forum for air quality professionals. With a dedicated website team we aim to have regular and up to date news appearing on the site. The site will continue to host job advertisements geared to the interests of its members in the academic, public and private sectors.

In addition the revised website will provide an enhanced interface with the membership. One aspect of this will be hosting of the IAQM’s responses to relevant consultations such as the recent Government consultation on the Climate Change Bill.

The IAQM is also planning to host topical events. This process started with an event, jointly organised by the IES, on indoor air quality. More recently there was a most stimulating presentation by Professor Stephen Holgate on the air quality aspects of the recent RCEP report; “The Urban Environment”.

Forthcoming events include the AGM of the Institute at ARUP’s offices (13 Fitzroy Street, London) on Wednesday 14th November starting at 2pm which will include a number of presentations. The topic(s) for these have yet to be finalised. This will be followed in the early evening by the Burntwood lecture to be given by Dr. Martin Williams of Defra on “Air quality in 2050­synergies and trade­offs with climate change”. The venue for this has yet to be confirmed but is likely to be the Grosvenor offices in Grosvenor Street.

For further information contact Dr. David Muir:

The UK Government and the devolved administrations published the latest Air Quality Strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, 17 July 2007 The strategy:
sets out a way forward for work and planning on air quality issues sets out the air quality standards and objectives to be achievedintroduces a new policy framework for tackling fine particlesidentifies potential new national policy measures which modelling indicates could give further health benefits and move closer towards meeting the strategy’s objectives.

Visit the DEFRA website to download the document

For the first time at UEA, the programme combines internationally established research and teaching expertise from 4 Schools:
· Norwich Business School
· School of Environmental Sciences, including:
- Climatic Research Unit
- Carbon Reduction Programme – CRed
- Carbon Connections
- Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
· School of Economics
· School of Development Studies

This pioneering MBA will accelerate the emergence of the next generation of managers who will be able to lead confidently and positively towards the low carbon economy.

To request a brochure: carbonmba@uea.ac.uk

The Institute of Air Quality Management was a consultee on the consultation over the Air Quality Strategy. With the publication of the Strategy on 17 July 2007, a Summary of responses to the consultation on the review of the Air Quality Strategy was also published.

One concern of the IAQM was the role of local authorities, especially under the new exposure reduction system for PM2.5. The response to this in the Summary of responses, was:

The UK Government and the devolved administrations fully recognise the importance of local authorities in helping to deliver air quality improvements. The new Strategy discusses these at great length and highlights the significant contributions they have made under the Local Air Quality Management system and describes some of their local actions to improve air quality and main regulatory functions.

A big issue here is how will the exposure reduction target be delivered? Local authorities through development planning and other local action should play a big part in this, but currently the mechanism for this to work remains unclear.

A key statement in the Written Ministerial Statement by Jonathan Shaw  (The Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs and Minister for the South East on the Air Quality Strategy) was:

The annual Air Quality Bulletin website review was published in September's issue. Chiltern District Council, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council and the City of York Counicl have all scored full marks in the Air Quality Bulletin's annual review of local authority's air quality websites. The scores are based on the quality and ease of finding the websites.
The relaunched IAQM site came a respectable 33rd for non-local authority websites, much improved on last years 44th.

Air Quality Bulletin online

Care4Air hosted their third annual conference in Sheffield on 20th September. The key themes of the day were air quality, climate change, transport and the links between the three. A brief summary of the key air quality presentations is given below. The full presentations can be downloaded from the Care4Air website www.care4air.org

Jonathan Lartice (DEFRA) - update on air quality policy.
Andrew Whittles (CENEX) - an informative presentation regarding low carbon fleets.
Alan Lewis (Transport Travel Research) - an introduction to the South London Freight Quality Plan and potential benefits.
Andy Nolan (Sheffield City Council) - considers the need to communicate climate change as there is still much confusion within the general public.
Ogo Osammor (Sheffield City Council) - an introduction to the new good practice guidance being developed (Planning for Low Emissions).
Rob Pilling (Sheffield Climate Action Groups) - Launch of the 'Sheffield Campaign against Climate Change'.
Dr Stephen Finnegan and Lynsay Hughes (Arup) - Introduction to IMPACT (Impact Model of the Prediction and Assessment of CO2 from Transport).
David Brown (South Yorkshire Public Transport Executive) - Aspirations and plans for public transport in South Yorkshire.
Gwyn Jones (AEA Technology) - Introduction to the new Air Quality Action Plan helpdesk.
Tim Godson (Government Office for Yorkshire and The Humber) - A look at the Local Government Performance Framework and local area agreements.

The new Air Quality Directive was due to go to a vote at the Environment Committee on 9 October and then to a plenary vote in the Parliament in December, with the aim of implementation in early 2010.  The latest news from this Committee vote is not good, although not totally bad.  The bad news is that the 5 year extension period for all pollutants was accepted as were exemptions for industry under the IPPC Directive and there are greater loopholes on where the Limit Values apply, in particular in relation to PM.
On the plus side the Committee did vote in favour of a more stringent annual average Limit Value for PM10 of 33 µg m-3 by 2010.  They also backed a recommendation for a binding limit of 20 µg m-3 on PM2.5 to be met by 2015.
Although one of the outcomes of the Directive will be to consolidate the Framework and Daughter Directives there are a number of other aspects to it.  One of these is the incorporation of the Exchange of Information Decision although the detailed significance of this is not completely clear at present.  On the practical side it addresses the issue of siting criteria, both for monitoring and modelling.  In addition to the new Limit Value for PM2.5, tightened from 25 µg m-3, there is a non-mandatory exposure reduction target for PM2.5 of 20% with the reference value being the 3 year average concentration for the period 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2010 to be compared with the average from 2018 to 2020, hence the need to get PM2.5 monitors in place quickly.  On the PM2.5 front there appears to be confusion about the parallel adoption of “Exposure Reduction” and “Limit Value” approaches and about which is the main driver.  Essentially, exposure reduction is meant to be the main approach over large areas but with the Limit Value as a backstop to ensure that hot-spots are not ignored.

Another Directive requirement is a 2:1 ratio of Urban Background to “Traffic” sites for NO2, PM, CO and benzene.  Again this explains parts of the AURN reorganisation.  Where monitoring is carried out for assessment of exposure reduction it has to be in urban background locations in urban areas with a population >100,000.  The Directive also designates the most recent CEN standards as reference methods for monitoring; something that could have implications for anyone considering establishing new monitoring sites.  This has already had an impact on the PAH network where the 4th Daughter Directive (DD) requirements have necessitated the replacement of the samplers at the 24 existing sites and the establishment of 10 additional sites.  This DD has also resulted in the relocation of some of the sites in the Heavy Metals network and the establishment of 11 new sites.

The Automated Urban and Rural network is undergoing a massive reorganisation.  The main driver behind this is European legislation; in part those elements relating to existing monitoring requirements and in part the need to prepare for the introduction of an exposure reduction regime for PM2.5.
The reorganisation means the complete closure of some sites, including some very long running sites, a large reduction in the number of sites monitoring CO and SO2, some reduction in the number sites monitoring PM10, and the installation of 61 PM2.5 monitors at existing sites.  The Rural part of the network is virtually unchanged, the one exception being London Teddington, which loses its SO2 monitor and gains PM10 and PM2.5 samplers.  The reductions in CO and SO2 are far fewer than strictly required; 26 CO and 48 SO2 against requirements of 6 CO (3 in London, 2 in Manchester and 1 in Bristol) and 28 SO2, as reductions below these numbers would render the UK’s modelling programme ineffective.
Of the older sites, Belfast East, Manchester Town Hall, Walsall Alumwell and West London (Earl’s Court), which were in the original Statutory Urban Network (SUN), closed on 30 September and the SO2 analyser from Sunderland, which was also a SUN site seems to be being relocated to the Sunderland Silksworth site.  The only site from the Enhanced Urban Network to be closed in this reorganisation is Wolverhampton Centre although over the years Birmingham East, Bristol Centre, Edinburgh Centre, Hull Centre, Liverpool Centre, and Swansea Centre have all been relocated and redesignated.  An interesting point is that one site was reprieved from the closure programme, London Hillingdon, which, although classified as “Suburban”, is actually quite close to the M4.
There will be a total of 46 sites monitoring PM10 and at least 45 of these (the position at Hillingdon is still a bit unclear) will also monitor PM2.5.  In addition, a further 20 sites will monitor PM2.5 alone.  A number of new sites will also have to be established or affiliated which will add 1 background PM2.5 site in London (possibly Greenwich 12  - Millennium Village) and, across the UK, a total of 17 new NOX monitors, 14 PM10 samplers and 14 PM2.5 samplers at roadside locations.  The assumption is that the latter will be collocated but how many will also be collocated with the NOX monitors is not known.

There are also a few changes to the pumped tube benzene network, essentially to address the requirements of the AQ Directive.  It appears that 12 current sites are to be closed and 11 new sites established presumably by relocation of displaced samplers.  Also on the hydrocarbon side the passive 1,3 butadiene samplers have been discontinued.

Fay Davies & Karen Bozier (Salford University) and Doug Middleton (Met Office) have recently published results from the ISB52 funded study of the boundary layer depth (bld) or mixing height, using remote sensing with a ground based pulsed Doppler lidar system, Collier et al. (2005).  This study sought to measure atmospheric boundary layer parameters (including boundary layer depth) that are used in dispersion models. The paper by Davies et al. (2007) discusses the boundary layer depth from models and measurements.

Figure 1: 10.6 micron Doppler lidar system showing light table fitted inside a mobile laboratory.

Figure 2: Boundary Layer Heights from Model data (Unified Model-Red), (ADMS Urban-black), (ADMS rural – green), (ADMS ‘transition’ – dashed green), and Lidar data (mixed layer height – circles) , (cloudbase – points)

Figure 3: New Salford 1.5 micron Doppler Lidar produced by Halo Photonics and measuring 56cm x54cmx18cm. (Range gate :30m, minimum range 120m)

Figure 4: Data from the new Salford 1.5 micron Doppler lidar taken during the Helsinki Testbed on the 21st August 2006. The top panel shows beginning of a air pollution incident as forest fires in Northern Russia are advected across Helsinki. Lower panel shows the Vertical velocities.

References:
 
Collier C G, Bozier K E, Davies F, Holt A R, Middleton D R , Pearson G N, Siemen S, Willetts D V, Upton G J G. and Young R I, Dual-Doppler Lidar Measurements for Improving Dispersion Models. Bulletin American Meteorological Society, June 2005. pp. 825-838.

Davies F, Middleton D R and Bozier K E, Urban Air pollution Modelling and Measurements of Boundary Layer Height, 2007, Atmospheric Environment 41: pp. 4040-4049.

Doppler lidar observations of Russian forest fire plumes over Helsinki (2007)
K E Bozier, G N Pearson, C G Collier, Weather, Royal Meteorological Rociety, Pub. Wiley.  Volume 62 Issue 8 , Pages 203 - 207 (August 2007)