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Limitations of the air quality indicator

The key limitations of the environmental indicator for air are:

  • The indicator covers only the five key outdoor air pollutants of national significance. In addition, it does not include indoor air pollution.
  • The indicator is primarily focused on tracking air quality against the national environmental standard. Although localised studies on air quality are able to provide more detailed information on the human health effects of air pollution, this indicator does not report on or quantify the specific human health effects of poor air quality at the national scale.
  • The indicator does not show the effects from exposure to two or more air pollutants in the environment. This is relevant because most combustion processes give rise to several pollutants simultaneously.
  • The indicator reports on the state of air quality over time, but does not allow for the influence of variations in weather and climate from year to year. This makes it difficult to assess whether changes in air quality are caused by changing environmental pressures – for example, a reduction in the emission of air pollutants – or weather variations, such as changes in wind patterns.
  • Before the introduction of the ambient standards in 2005, many locations had little or no nationally comparable monitoring that provided data for long-term trends of air quality.
The above information has come from the latest environmental report card on PM10.

 

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Last updated: February 2009