Elsevier

Atmospheric Environment

Volume 35, Issue 32, November 2001, Pages 5567-5580
Atmospheric Environment

The atmosphere in England and Wales: an environmental management review

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1352-2310(01)00217-5Get rights and content

Abstract

Air pollution in England and Wales is reviewed to identify priorities for management and research. The main human drivers of emissions are the production and consumption of energy and materials, disposal of waste, transport and land use. Pollutants are assigned to seven types: (i) nuisance (e.g. odour, noise), (ii) toxic, (iii) acidifying/eutrophying, (iv) photochemical oxidant precursors, (v) radionuclides, (vi) stratospheric ozone depleting substances and (vii) greenhouse gases. Dominant trends in activity and emissions are highlighted. New technologies and fuels are partially decoupling emissions from activity in power generation, industry and transport, but the gains are being offset by growth in demand and output in all major sectors. The evidence for impacts on human health, the atmosphere and other environmental systems is discussed. Priorities for management are climate change, ground-level ozone, acidification and eutrophication by nitrogen, urban air quality and nuisance pollution. Management responses require greater foresight, technological improvements and new instruments to control polluting activities. More scientific information is needed on the impacts on human health, quality of life and ecosystems, and on the links between different types of pollution. The policy challenges include generating energy sustainably, reducing transport impacts, devising effective economic instruments, improving societal awareness and contributing to cleaner global development.

Introduction

This paper uses an environmental management cycle approach to review the atmosphere of England and Wales. The information is organised according to the drivers-pressures-state-impacts-response (DPSIR) framework (Fig. 1; European Environment Agency, 1998) and by pollutant type. This is a simple framework for analysing information to identify priorities for society, politicians, regulators and scientists.

Sources of air pollution include industries, businesses, individuals and ecosystems, which are also the receptors of air pollution. The impacts are diverse and cover a wide range of spatial and temporal scales (Fig. 2). This is a hugely complex system to manage and requires priorities to be set, as reflected in some current initiatives (Table 1):

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    The Air Quality Strategy for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland addresses air quality in relation to human health and sets sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (NOx) objectives for ecosystems (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, DETR et al., 2000a).

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    European Union (EU) standards are being established under the Framework Directive on Ambient Air Quality (96/62/EC).

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    EU strategies nest within United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) emissions protocols, including that on acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone.

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    Globally, the Montreal Protocol and its amendments tackle substances that deplete the ozone layer, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change addresses greenhouse gases.

To evaluate these and other provisions, we need to consider the environmental management cycle for the atmosphere as a whole.

Section snippets

Drivers

‘Drivers’ refers to the underlying socio-economic factors that influence potentially damaging activities. The driving forces influencing the atmosphere include energy and material use, waste disposal, transport and land use.

Pressures

‘Pressures’ in this context are the sources and quantities of air emissions. The diversity of sources has implications for control measures which are discussed in Section 4.

State

‘State’ refers to the concentrations and deposition of pollutants, sometimes measured against standards related to tolerable risks of impact. Accurate data on concentrations and fluxes are necessary to quantify relationships to emissions and received doses, and to use as surrogates of impacts where these are poorly known (Section 5). Several of the main trends in air pollution have been subject to detailed review in recent years (Table 4). There are UK air quality standards for human health for

Impacts

‘Impacts’ are the adverse effects on humans, ecosystems or property of exposure to air pollution concentrations or depositions, or to resulting climatic changes. The most well known impacts of air pollution have been reviewed by expert groups (Table 4, Fig. 4). Despite much progress there are a number of areas where limited understanding constrains our ability to target emission controls.

Impacts on human health are the principal motivation for regulating air pollution. Although the risks to

Responses

‘Responses’ are the management actions taken (most often on drivers and pressures) to improve the state of the atmosphere and its impacts. The typical approach to air pollution, as to other environmental problems, has been reactive. When evidence of harm has emerged, often from a critical episode, formal controls have been applied, usually to ‘end-of-pipe’ releases. Nuisance pollutants are often dealt with in response to complaints, when the effects have already been felt. The London smog of

Gaps in the science

Previous regulatory effort has focused on pollutant emissions and to a lesser extent on concentrations and deposition to assess changes in the state of the atmosphere. In the future more emphasis is needed on actual impacts on human health, quality of life and ecosystems, as in the critical loads and critical levels approaches and the national Air Quality Strategy. Work is needed to improve the scope and accuracy of emissions inventories, dispersion models, and mapping and costing pollution, in

Conclusions

In conclusion, important policy and research areas include the following:

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    understanding human health and ecological impacts, including better assessment of personal exposures and combinations of pollutants, so that standards can be set and controls targeted to protect vulnerable individuals and ecosystems;

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    developing quantitative measures of nuisance air pollution to monitor and control effects on the quality of life;

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    improving emissions and air quality monitoring systems to guide control measures

Acknowledgments

Our thanks are due to many Environment Agency colleagues for their help on this work. Garry Hayman and Mike Holland of the National Environmental Technology Centre and Greg Archer of WS Atkins made valuable contributions to the study. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Environment Agency.

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