Investigating Air Pollution

Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to long-term exposure. There is strong evidence that air pollution causes the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, and exacerbates asthma.

Air pollution is monitored and regulated. Air quality targets for particulates, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), are mostly aimed at local government representatives responsible for the management of air quality in cities, where air quality management is the most urgent. In 2017, research by the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and the Royal College of Physicians revealed that air pollution levels in 44 cities in the UK are above the recommended World Health Organization guidelines.

The aim of this task is to allow you to investigate one pollutant, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), using data collected by UK Air Quality Archive. This dataset is one of the most extensive in the world and it contains some 400 million data points! You will look at small part of this information, two data sets from 2018 from:

• Marylebone, London

• St Leonards, Edinburgh

Task 1 What is nitrogen dioxide and what are the harms?

Use your own knowledge and the internet to answer the following questions:

1. How is nitrogen dioxide formed?

2. What are the natural sources of nitrogen dioxide?

3. What are the human sources of nitrogen dioxide?

4. How does nitrogen dioxide harm human health?

5. How does nitrogen dioxide harm ecosystems?

Task 2 Investigating the two monitoring stations

The websites below give details of the two monitoring stations; there is a link to Google maps on each page.

• Marylebone, London

• St. Leonards, Edinburgh

For each station:

1. Describe the land use within 10m, 50 m and 100m.

2. How far away is the nearest source of nitrogen dioxide?

Remember you can find the data for Marylebone, London here and St. Leonards, Edinburgh here.

Task 3 Creating hypotheses

Before you look at the data, consider what you think it might show.

1. Which monitoring station will have the highest concentration of nitrogen dioxide and why?

For each monitoring station:

2. Which day of the year will have the highest concentration of nitrogen dioxide and why?

3. Which day of the year will have the lowest concentration of nitrogen dioxide and why?

Task 4 Investigating at the data

The data for both stations can be found in this Google sheet; there are two pages, one for each station.

There is an entire year of data for 2018, where the mean result for each day is given. At the bottom of each data set, the following analysis is reported:

• Mean

• Minimum value

• Maximum value

1. Use this analysis to see if your hypotheses from Task 3 were correct. If not, what could the reason be?

HINT: You can use ‘ctrl’ ‘f’ to create a search button. This will help you find a value.

Remember you can find the data for Marylebone, London here and St. Leonards, Edinburgh here.

Task 5 Short-term variations in the data

So far you have looked at a whole year of data, so now you will think about how the concentration of nitrogen dioxide might change over one week. Using the Marylebone, London data, answer the following questions:

1. Which day of the week do you think will have the highest and lowest concentration of nitrogen dioxide? Why?

2. Choose 7 days of consecutive data from Marylebone. Use the internet to find out which day of the week these dates relate to. Which days have the highest and lowest concentrations? Were you correct in Q1? If not, why not?

3. Try the same task with another 7 days of data. Is the result the same?

Task 6 Is the NO₂ concentration safe?

National air quality objectives and European Directive limit and target values for the protection of human health for nitrogen dioxide is an annual mean of 40 ug m³.

1. Look again at the mean value for 2018, for both Marylebone and St. Leonards. Is the air quality at these locations safe for human health?

2. From what you have learnt today, do you think that the place where you live has safe concentrations of nitrogen dioxide? Can you think of a location that might not be safe?

3. Search the internet and find one place in North Devon that has problems with air quality. Which pollutants are too high? What is being done to solve this issue?

Conclusion

I hope this task has given you some insight into the issues related to air quality that are being faced by both local and national Government, and also by the people who live and work near congested areas. Environmental Scientists have a very important role, both now and in the future, related to finding environmental problems, monitoring the issues and then finding ways to create sustainable futures, for the benefit of everyone.

Want to know more?

The data you have been working with comes from this website. You could use the website to investigate more years, different pollutants and different locations. Have fun!