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Air Quality in Scotland: The Current Situation
Andrew G Taylor Air Quality Policy Manager
Scottish Urban Air Quality Steering Group – Modelling
Workshop 9 December 2014
Presentation Outline
• Overview of air quality in Scotland • Approach to air quality monitoring and data
gathering • Low Emission Strategy
• Air quality in Scotland compares favourably with the rest of the UK and Europe
• Pollution levels have dropped markedly over recent decades
through regulating emissions from industrial processes, progressively tightening emissions and fuel standards for road vehicles, and controlling smoke from domestic premises
• We have come a long way since the smogs of the 1950s – overall the air we breathe today is cleaner than at any time since the Industrial Revolution
• So – why are we here?
What’s the issue on the street? Increasing
Decreasing
There is a difference from one area to another and one pollutant to another.
Nitrogen Dioxide 40 µg m-3 Annual mean
Particulate Matter PM10 18 µg m-3 Annual mean PM2.5 12 µg m-3 Annual mean
Scotland’s Objectives
Maintaining
Many issues can affect local air quality and it’s not always clear why.
Street design
Traffic density Weather
Local issues
Nothings ever clear at the street level…
Other pollutants
Traffic type
Public Health England study: • 2,094 deaths in people over the age of 25 in Scotland in 2010
attributed to particulate matter – 3.9% of all deaths • Average life expectancy reduced by six months • In 2010, the UK Dept of Health’s Committee on the Medical
Effects of Air Pollution concluded that air pollution may have made at least some contribution to the premature death of around 200,000 people in the UK per year, with an average life loss of about two years.
• In comparism, fewer than 3,000 people die annually in road
accidents, around 100,000 from smoking and around 15,000 from excessive alcohol consumption.
Local Air Quality Management • Under Environment Act 1995, local authorities
required to assess air quality in their areas against objectives for several pollutants of concern for human health
• If any objectives not being achieved by required dates, authority must declare an Air Quality Management Area and produce an action plan
• Currently >30 AQMAs in Scotland – with more to come – nearly all based on transport related emissions of nitrogen dioxide and/or particulate matter
Air quality monitoring in Scotland & UK
• c.300 monitoring sites operated by central government in the UK – organised into automatic & non-automatic networks
• Automatic urban and rural network (AURN) • Automatic hydrocarbon network • Automatic London network
AURN
• Largest network – currently 105 sites in UK, of which 18 are in Scotland
• Main network for assessing compliance with EU ambient air quality Directive requirements
Scottish monitoring network
• c.90 sites in the Scottish monitoring network • Functioning since 2006 • The AURN sites plus local authority sites which are operated to AURN standards
• The air quality situation in Scotland is improving and we’ve made significant progress, but….
there is still a lot to be done, and… the situation is very complex
• So – what else can we do?
Action planning • Many local authorities have long established action
plans with a wide range of measures, but progress in improving air quality is slow
• Measures with the biggest potential impacts tend to be expensive and/or presentationally difficult – Low Emission Zones, congestion charging, large scale modal shift to public transport
• Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow have all completed/are undertaken LEZ feasibility studies – but no LEZ yet in Scotland despite widespread adoption in Europe
A national approach to LEZs • A national approach may help acceptability –
certainty for businesses and transport operators with the same standards to be met everywhere
• Scottish Government announced in July 2013 that a
national framework for LEZs would be developed • This concept has subsequently developed into plans
for a national Low Emissions Strategy within which the LEZ framework will sit
A national Low Emissions Strategy The aim: The LES will draw together various policies being implemented and developed across a range of central government portfolios which have the potential to improve air quality, and other cross-cutting environmental issues, and present these within a coherent overall framework.
Progress to date • Draft Strategy developed over past few months by Scottish Government, Transport Scotland and SEPA • Regular feedback from Scottish Transport Emissions Partnership members and Scottish urban air quality group
Mission, Vision & Objectives
National Low Emission Zone Framework
• Development of the LEZ framework still at an early stage – initial proposals in the draft Strategy
• Decision on whether to introduce an LEZ will still be with local
authorities – but will have to comply with criteria in the national framework
• Certainty and consistency for all who are affected – on both the
implementation and compliance sides
National Modelling Framework
• The national framework provides a standardised approach to modelling air quality at the regional and local scales, feeding directly into existing tools that will assist local authorities in the land use and transport planning process and help them to explore possible Low Emission Zone (LEZ) scenarios
Consultation – next stages
• Full draft Strategy will be issued for consultation before end of 2014
• Second consultation stage will involve: - formal Scottish Government consultation exercise - further informal discussions with STEP, SUAQG and others - engagement with individuals/organisations with previous
experience of developing and implementing Low Emission Strategies
• Aiming to publish this final version as soon as is feasible –
important to maintain focus and momentum, and start delivering on the actions
