Block 8: Environmental Issues and Public Health - Air Pollution Chapter 6: Methods Of Assessing Air Quality - Measuring, Monitoring And Modelling Ambient Pollutant Concentrations.
 

Air Pollutant Emission Inventory:

Air Quality or Air Pollution Indices (AQI or API)

An Air Quality of Air Pollution Index may be used to communicate potential health effects by relating air pollutant concentrations to a numerical scale indicating the expected health effect exposure at that level.

The UK index system is:

Table 6-1: Boundaries Between Index Points for Each Pollutant in the UK system.a
Band Index Ozone Nitrogen Dioxide Sulphur Dioxide Carbon Monoxide PM10 Particles
8 hourly or hourly mean*
µg/m3		 Hourly mean
µg/m3		 15 minute mean
µg/m3		 8 hour mean
µg/m3		 24 hour mean
µg/m3
Low 1 10-32 10-95 10-88 10-3.8 10-16
2 33-66 96-190 89-176 3.9-7.6 17-32
3 67-99 191-286 177-265 7.7-11.5 33-49
UK Air Quality Standards
Moderate 4 100-126 287-381 266-354 11.6-13.4 50-57
5 127-152 382-476 355-442 13.5-15.4 58-66
6 153-179 478-572 443-531 15.5-17.3 67-74
High 7 180-239 573-635 532-708 17.4-19.2 75-82
8 240-299 636-700 709-886 19.3-21.2 83-91
9 300-359 701-763 887-1063 21.3-23.1 92-99
Very High 10 360 or more 764 or more 1064 or more 23.2 or more 100 or more
* For ozone, the maximum of the 8 hourly and hourly mean is used to calculate the index value.
a Adapted from the netcen (www.netcen.co.uk) data archive website:http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/standards.php#std

The index system proposed for the DAPPS project, based on relative risk of excess daily mortality, is:

Table 6-2: The definition of the DAPPS Air Pollution Index (API) System
  Pollutant exposure
metric ->		 PM10, 24h average [µg/m3] PM2.5, 24h average [µg/m3] SO2, 24h average [µg/m3] Ozone, 8h maximum [µg/m3] Ozone, 1h maximum [µg/m3] NO2, 1h maximum [µg/m3] CO, 8h rolling average [mg/m3]
Relative risk Index Value Concentration = (RR-1)/(Excess Risk Factor)
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
1.015 1 21 10 38 30 33 51 3.9
1.031 2 41 20 77 60 67 102 7.9
1.046 3 62 30 115 90 100 153 11.8
1.061 4 83 40 153 120 133 204 15.7
1.077 5 104 50 192 150 167 256 19.7
1.092 6 124 60 230 180 200 307 23.6
1.107 7 145 70 268 210 233 358 27.5
1.123 8 166 80 307 241 267 409 31.5
1.138 9 186 90 345 271 300 460 35.4
1.153 10 ³ 207 ³ 100 ³ 383 ³ 301 ³ 333 ³ 511 ³ 39.3