Air Pollution Measurement and Monitoring
This page overviews the ways Lancaster City Council monitors air pollution and summarises our results. See also background information about air pollution monitoring.
The council’s Environmental Health Service monitors air pollution to:
- help us review and assess air quality across the district borough
- measure whether air quality standards are being met
- provide good local information for policy decisions
- provide the community with information on the quality of air we breathe
We do this in a number of ways and different locations. We have participated in national monitoring networks for 25 years. We monitored continuously at Water Street in Lancaster from 1998 to 2010. Early in 2011 we introduced two new continuous monitoring stations in Cable Street and Dalton Square, Lancaster. We also use simple, inexpensive techniques to make monthly air pollution measurements in around 45 locations.
Air pollutants measured
The pollutants we measure in one or more places are Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Particulate Matter (PM10). Locally, the primary source of both pollutants is road transport.
Monitoring results
Annual reports are available summarising measurements made by continuous monitoring:
- in Water Street, Lancaster for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010
- at two new sites in Cable Street and Dalton Square, Lancaster for 2011, 2012
Some of these annual reports are relatively large file sizes (approx 2mb)
Full data sets of continuous monitoring are available to order using the form in the right hand downloads menu. There is a small charge for this data (local residents and students are exempted).