7 Oct 2020Clean Air Day – 8th October

The 8^th October 2020 is Clean Air Day, a UK-wide campaign to improve public understanding of air pollution and its effects on our health, while promoting easy actions we can take to help tackle it. We are encouraged to make a pledge to reduce air pollution on this day, such as working from home, giving cars a day off or avoiding domestic fires. CERC staff are continuing to work from home almost every day, due to COVID-19 restrictions, while contributing to scientific and public understanding of air pollution.

During the COVID-19 lockdown we experienced cleaner air due to widespread shifts to low pollution behaviours. CERC quantified emission reductions in London using inverse modelling techniques, with emissions up to mid-July remaining at less than 50% of average levels from January to early March (see figure). CERC's air quality forecasting services including airTEXT for Greater London, Chelmsford, Colchester and Cambridge inform the public of the daily variation in air quality, along with high-resolution maps which can be used to identify lower-pollution routes for active transport in their local area.

The online event Clean Air Day Live will include a special focus on the relationship between coronavirus and air pollution, and the new possibilities our changed habits have opened up for the future. To find out more, go to www.cleanairday.org.uk, or tweet @cleanairdayuk #CleanAirDay to get involved.

16 Sep 2020ADMS-Roads online training now available

CERC are now offering online training for the model ADMS-Roads. Several dates are available in the coming months; please refer to the Training page for specific dates and prices. If you are interested in attending online ADMS-Roads training, please email training@cerc.co.uk.

11 Sep 202027% of schools are in areas exceeding WHO air quality guidelines

New analysis by Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) found that 8,549 educational establishments (27% of all schools, nurseries and colleges) are situated in areas which exceed recommended air pollution guidelines. CERC, commissioned by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, found that these establishments are in areas with average levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that are above the guideline recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (10μg/m³ for the annual average).

CERC used existing modelled PM2.5 data published by the UK Government as part of their responsibilities under the Environment Act 1995. CERC used predicted annual average PM2.5 data for 2019; these data do not include effects from the COVID-19 'lockdown'. These data have a spatial resolution of 1 km x 1 km, and therefore represent 'background' levels of PM2.5. These data give a representative indication of expected PM2.5 levels across the whole of the UK at sufficient resolution to provide good evidence; however they do not capture hyperlocal spatial variations in PM2.5 levels caused by road traffic.

The research covers England, Scotland and Wales. Postcodes for schools were extracted from the Scottish government school statistics and the English and Welsh government register of schools and colleges. In total, 31,979 schools and colleges were included.

Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation want the government to commit to a stronger and safer new legal limit for PM2.5 in the Environment Bill in line with WHO guidelines.

8 Sep 2020EFT 10.1 update for ADMS-Roads, ADMS-Urban and ADMS-Airport

The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Devolved Administrations have released version 10.1 of the Emissions Factors Toolkit (EFT). Details of the changes for this version are given on page 5 of the EFT user guide.

We have processed the new EFT and published an update for ADMS-Roads, ADMS-Urban and ADMS-Airport version 5 on the Other downloads page of our User Area. If you are registered, you can go straight to the download folder. If you are not registered, follow the instructions on the User Area main page.

28 Aug 2020UK road traffic Emissions Factors Toolkit (EFT) 10.1

EFT version 10.1 has now been released by Defra and the Devolved Administrations (August 2020). We have started reprocessing the data into the RTM format used by ADMS-Roads and ADMS-Urban. This process is likely to take a couple of weeks, and we will issue another News Item when this becomes available for download from our User Area.