Pollutionwatch: May 2008

April’s hot sunny weather held out for the first few days of May, leading to moderate ozone concentrations being recorded up to the 5th as far afield as southeast England, Lerwick in the Shetlands and Lough Navar in Northern Ireland. As far as air pollution was concerned, the rest of the month was literally a washout with large amounts of wet and windy weather ensuring lots of clean air just about everywhere. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the UK’s National Air Quality Strategy. Although it has not yet managed to help us achieve clean air for the entire population, we have managed to develop a comprehensive system for identifying air quality problems and beginning to draw up plans for tackling them. A team from the University of the West of England in Bristol, is currently working with South Africa in order to use this established skill base to help manage air pollution there. Current industrial air pollution control policies in South Africa are over 30 years old. Combined with problems resulting from the apartheid era planning system this has resulted in many people being directly exposed to extremely high pollution. In the townships and settlements, poverty means that coal is frequently used for heating and cooking. This combines with modern pollutants from the rapidly increasing use of both cars and trucks. The key to success in tackling these problems will be the ability to accurately detect which sources are contributing most pollution in any particular location so that the limited resources of what is still a developing country can be most efficiently targeted at protecting the health of its citizens.