CERC news

Draft agendas now available for the ADMS User Group Meetings, 11-12 November 2026, Manchester

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is still time to book your tickets for the 2026 ADMS User Group Meetings, which will be held at voco Manchester on 11th and 12th November.

ADMS 6 User Group Meeting, 11th November: view draft agenda
ADMS-Urban and ADMS-Roads, 12th November: view draft agenda

Tickets are available to order through Eventbrite until 23:30 on Monday 26th October. Organisations with a valid software support contract are entitled to one or more tickets free of charge depending on the type of licence held.

A web-tool to estimate the economic cost of air pollution

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

As part of CERC's work for Impact on Urban Health (IoUH), we have updated our bespoke web-based air pollution impact tool. Although designed for use by the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, an equivalent tool could be useful for a local authority anywhere in the UK.

This update includes the latest pollution data for 2025 as well as the addition of new features.

Most interesting is the inclusion of Defra damage costs. This feature calculates the economic cost (£) of air pollution due to the associated health burdens, as demonstrated in the image.

By using the inbuilt 'Measures' sliders, users can visualise the real-world economic benefits of reducing air pollution via a range of schemes, either alone or in combination.

CERC used ADMS-Urban to calculate concentrations of NO₂, PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 at sensitive locations for 2025. The measures were modelled individually in order to calculate their effectiveness; some example measures are displayed in the image (right click to expand). The tool shows how specific clean air measures reduce pollution.

If you would like access to the web-tool, please email Amandeep Kellay at IoUH, giving the reasons for your interest.

The tool is scalable and would represent a ground-breaking application of health-based science if, for example, applied across the whole of London. If you are interested in our work on the implications of air quality and would like to make use of our expertise, please contact CERC.

defra Environmental Science Research, Development and Evidence (ES RDE) Framework

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

CERC is pleased to announce that we have been appointed to Defra's new Environmental Science Research, Development and Evidence (ES RDE) Framework, as part of a consortium led by Logika Group (the trading name of Air Quality Consultants).

This means that defra and agencies within the defra group (including Environment Agency and Natural England) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (now Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (DBIST) and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) can make a direct award to CERC or other consortium members, or invite AQC to bid in a mini competition drawing on consortium members with relevant expertise.

Under the previous RDE Framework, CERC contributed to 11 projects for defra, Department for Transport (DfT) and the Environment Agency. The new Framework started earlier this year and will run until the end of January 2034.

CERC has been awarded places on four sublots within Lot 3, Air Quality and Sound:

Sublot 3.1: Air Quality Analysis and Expert Services
Sublot 3.3: Air Quality monitoring and data projects
Sublot 3.4: Modelling tools for Air Quality studies
Sublot 3.5: Air Quality economics and social research

The consortium also includes the following organisations:

Aether Ltd
UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH)
EMRC/Mike Holland
I C Consultants
Institute of Occupational Medicine
Ipsos
Risk & Policy Analysts (RPA) Ltd
Rothamsted Research

Please contact us to find out how the consortium can support you.

New indoor-outdoor air quality modelling projects

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

CERC are very pleased to be part of the team awarded funding for a feasibility project looking at the influence of outdoor air quality on indoor exposures, and associated health outcomes. The project 'INdoor Health, Air pollution and Location-linked Exposure in the West Midlands' (INHALE-WM) will investigate how the location, structure and quality of domestic buildings shape residents' exposure to traffic-related air pollution in social housing. The study has been funded as part of the BREATHE IN EPSRC Micro Network +, which is addressing the relationship between population health and the built environment.

Dr Nana Wei at the University of Birmingham leads the team, bringing together expertise from CERC alongside researchers from the University of Reading, as well as Birmingham colleagues from the Department of Applied Health Sciences and the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. Read more about INHALE-WM and the two other feasibility projects funded under BREATHE IN.

CERC are also part of the 'Indoor Habitability during the Transition to Net Zero Housing Hub' (INHABIT). This 5-year NIHR-funded initiative aims to make sure that the UK's move to net zero homes also creates healthier places to live. INHABIT will generate new scientific evidence on the impacts of retrofitting in real homes, and turning this into practical advice for government and industry professionals. Led by the University of Birmingham, the hub brings together a large, multi-disciplinary group of researchers and stakeholders. CERC are working with Professor Ruth Doherty from the University Edinburgh on generating high spatial and temporal resolution outdoor air quality datasets to feed into indoor and health modelling.

These projects enhance the ongoing work developing an indoor air quality model at CERC. An overview and some preliminary evaluation of this modelling tool was presented by CERC's Director Dr David Carruthers at the 2025 ADMS-Urban and ADMS-Roads User Group Meeting.

Tribute to Rex Britter

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rex Edward Britter died on May 3, 2026, in Belmont, Massachusetts, at the age of 79.

Born in Australia, Rex pursued his academic career, firstly at Cambridge University, where he became Professor of Environmental Fluid Dynamics and a Fellow of Pembroke College, and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where joined the Senseable City Lab. Throughout his career Rex made major contributions to our understanding of hazardous material dispersion, air quality and sustainable urban environments. He was an excellent communicator and brilliant at drawing profound conclusions from simple observations and explaining highly complex phenomena in readily understandable terms.

Rex's desire for his research to have practically useful outcomes led to him to being a founding director of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC) in 1985. He would often be seen cycling between Cambridge University Engineering Department and CERC's offices in King's Parade. At CERC, amongst many contributions spanning over 25 years and following from co-authorship of the still widely-used Workbook for Dense Gas Dispersion, Rex was responsible for the development of the dense gas dispersion model GASTAR. He also wrote seminal reports on scientific model evaluation, and flow and dispersion through rigs.

Rex's great insight and engaging sense of humour will be greatly missed.

Model Evaluation Toolkit v5.4 released

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

CERC's Model Evaluation Toolkit is a free tool for evaluating local and regional atmospheric dispersion models. A major new version has been released, marking its first significant public update since 2016. Version 5.4 introduces a wide range of enhancements that improve flexibility, data compatibility and analytical power.

The update significantly expands supported modelled concentration data formats. The tool is now compatible with a range of commonly used gridded datasets including MAQS, WRF-Chem, CMAQ, CAMx, CHIMERE and EMEP, alongside Defra background map data.

Data handling has been overhauled, with improved integration of monitoring networks using openair tools. Observational air quality data can now be automatically downloaded across multiple networks, while new metadata tools help users select appropriate monitoring sites more efficiently. Meteorological data inputs have also been added, enabling advanced evaluation analysis visualisations such as polar plots.

The Model Evaluation Tool can now analyse ensemble median datasets and composite pollutants such as the ratio of NO₂ to NO_x, or total oxidant (NO₂+O₃). New visualisation options — like statistical scatter plots and openair time variation plots — provide deeper insights into model performance. Additional metrics, including mean square error components, strengthen model evaluation techniques. Air quality forecast analysis capabilities have been enhanced, with new tools to identify pollution episodes based on user-defined thresholds, and compatibility with multiple air pollution index scales such as the UK's Daily Air Quality Index (DAQI) and the European Air Quality Index.

The Model Diagnostics Tool has greater flexibility, including selectable datasets, date ranges, and new polar plot functionality. Improvements to plotting controls and data markers offer more detailed visual analysis.

A universal shift to more flexible time-averaging and updated R package management completes the upgrade.

The Model Evaluation Toolkit version 5.4 User Guide is now available, with upgrade information given in the What's New? document.

Atmospheric dispersion model evaluation methods report published

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A key part of atmospheric dispersion model usage is evaluation using air concentration measurements. A wide variety of statistical and graphical evaluation methods are available, with no single method able to capture all aspects of model performance. Model users can find it difficult to decide on the most suitable methods for evaluating their own models, including how to define "acceptable" model performance. Policy makers also need guidance on how to interpret the results of atmospheric dispersion model evaluation.

CERC have recently completed the study 'A review of methods used to assess the performance of atmospheric dispersion models', commissioned by the UK Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee (ADMLC). The report provides a comprehensive review, covering evaluation methods and their suitability for different modelling applications. The study analysed 70 evaluation metrics across nine case studies and more than 30 models. Statistical metric thresholds for "acceptable" model performance have been proposed for non dimensional metrics, with more and less stringent criteria suggested where possible. Proposed thresholds were also compared with established acceptance criteria. CERC's freely available Model Evaluation Toolkit was used to perform the statistical calculations, and the updated version of this tool will be available in due course.

The full report can be accessed here.

A related in-person workshop has been organised for the 11^th June 2026, with the aim of gathering feedback from the atmospheric dispersion modelling community on the suitability of the threshold criteria proposed in the study. The workshop agenda is available here. Sign up by completing this form: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/6MRPrW3Yzg

The image shows an example of calculating thresholds for Normalised Absolute Error (NAE): (a) interquartile range results of NAE for the evaluated case studies, (b) these results presented in tabulated form, and (c) case studies assessed against acceptance criteria from Chang & Hanna (2004, 2012).

Workshop on Atmospheric Dispersion Model Evaluation Methods and Tools

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee (ADMLC), in collaboration with CERC, are hosting a workshop focused on atmospheric dispersion model evaluation metrics, including new proposals for model performance threshold criteria. Further information, including the workshop agenda, is given here.

The workshop builds on the outcomes of a recent ADMLC-commissioned study by CERC, which reviewed a wide range of statistical and graphical methods used in atmospheric dispersion model evaluation. The study analysed 70 evaluation metrics across nine case studies and more than 30 models, covering applications such as regulatory assessment, compliance, accidental release and air quality forecasting.

A key outcome of the project is proposed performance threshold criteria for a large number of non-dimensional model evaluation metrics. Where possible, the study compares thresholds to criteria already used within the atmospheric dispersion modelling community e.g. from Chang and Hanna (2004, 2012). This workshop will provide an opportunity to:

Present proposed threshold criteria and associated derivation methodologies
Discuss threshold suitability and applicability across different modelling contexts
Gather feedback to support potential adoption within the atmospheric dispersion modelling community

CERC will also showcase the Model Evaluation Toolkit, which was used to perform the case study model evaluation calculations. The Toolkit calculates the wide range of statistical metrics presented in the report and generates supporting graphics. It is available as a free resource to support consistent model evaluation practices. A new version will be released before the workshop.

This workshop is for practitioners, researchers and regulators involved in atmospheric dispersion model evaluation who are interested in improving the consistency and robustness of their techniques. There is no charge for the event but registration is required.

Thursday 11 June 2026, 10:00‐16:00
Harwell, Oxfordshire
Please register by completing this form: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/6MRPrW3Yzg
Deadline: Thursday 21 May 2026

The image shows examples of the types of figures and tables presented in the report: a decomposed error metric; metric results tabulated for all case studies; a boxplot for calculating proposed thresholds.

Tribute to Julian Hunt

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It is with great sadness we announce that Julian Hunt died on 20 April 2026.

As a brilliant scientist, Julian applied his mind and inexhaustible energy to a wide range of fluid mechanical problems. These ranged from fundamental studies of turbulence near surfaces and around obstacles, including his seminal papers on the rapid distortion theory of turbulence, to many ground-breaking studies with more immediate applications, including: turbulent airflow over hills; structure of the atmospheric boundary layer; atmospheric dispersion of pollutants over complex terrain; and airflow in urban and coastal environments.

Julian was always keen on communicating his research and applying it to practical applications. This led to him being a founding director of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in 1985; as he told me, he was motivated by his research being applied in the USA, "so why not in the UK?" At CERC, he was the leading force in the development of a range of fast environmental models incorporating state-of-the-art science. The first of these was FLOWSTAR for turbulent flow over hills, accounting for stratification and roughness. However, the most well-known is, of course, the Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling System, ADMS. ADMS was first released in 1991 and is now widely used across the world. Making extensive use of his theoretical advances, Julian constructed a model that was pioneering in its treatment of the atmospheric boundary structure and in extending treatment of Gaussian plume dispersion modelling to complex flows. Its advanced treatment of dispersion in inhomogeneous flow and turbulence over complex terrain has still not been replicated in any other Gaussian plume dispersion model.

Julian remained as Chairman of CERC until as recently as 2022, when he was still full of new ideas! He will be greatly missed.

David Carruthers, 27 April 2026

Image shows Julian (right) outside CERC offices in Cambridge in the 1990s, alongside other CERC Directors David Carruthers, Paul Linden and Tim Newton.

Air Quality Lifecourse Assessment Tool (AQ-LAT) featured in Air Quality News

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Air Quality Lifecourse Assessment Tool (AQ-LAT) has been featured in the April 2026 issue of Air Quality News. The article outlines how the tool links air quality modelling outputs with estimates of health and economic impacts to support policy development.

Developed by the University of Birmingham, the tool combines high-resolution air pollution data with population datasets and established epidemiological relationships to quantify outcomes such as premature mortality, disease incidence, healthcare costs, and productivity losses.

In current applications, high-resolution air pollution maps are generated by CERC using ADMS-Urban. These outputs provide the exposure data required for AQ-LAT to calculate health and economic impacts at a local scale.

This method has been applied to evaluate policy scenarios in the West Midlands, as a part of the WM-Air project, and in Oxfordshire, by OxonAir (a partnership between Oxfordshire County Council and the county's city and district councils).

This approach allows users to quantify the impacts of air quality interventions in terms of both pollutant concentrations and their associated health and economic outcomes. If you would like to know more about combining ADMS-Urban with AQ-LAT, please get in touch.

HARMO conference papers & other recent co-author publications

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The outcomes of several projects have recently been shared through international conference presentations, co-authored publications and technical reports. We were co-authors on four peer-reviewed papers during 2025, with another article already published in 2026. These studies reflect ongoing collaboration with universities, government and research institutes across a range of applied air quality topics.

CERC's Dr Martin Seaton and Dr Victoria Hamilton attended the HARMO conference Harmonisation within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling for Regulatory Purposes), which aims to improve consistency and best practice in atmospheric dispersion modelling.

Martin presented work assessing the impact of thermally driven flows on regulatory air dispersion modelling (paper here). This is particularly important in complex terrain and coastal environments, and forms part of CERC's contribution to the Environment Agency's research on the thermal transport of air pollution from regulated industries.

RIVM (the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) presented results from a study comparing eight widely used atmospheric dispersion and deposition models, including ADMS, to which CERC contributed. The study investigated ammonia and nitrogen oxides at the local scale (paper here) and highlighted the variability and complexity associated with modelling deposition.

Victoria presented an extension of the study, evaluating alternative concentration-dependent deposition (CDD) methods against current UK guidance (paper here). The image shows the modelled concentration and deposition results for the four CDD methods tested. Depending on model choice, resulting deposition can differ by up to a factor of 10 for low concentration values, and a factor of 3 for high values. Models accounting for bi-directional exchange of ammonia ('Big-leaf' and DEPAC) predict more accurate values for this case study.

The presentations and extended abstracts are now available on the HARMO website:
https://www.harmo.org/conference.php?id=23

Further recent co-authored work includes:

Ongoing research with Dr Zhong (University of Greenwich) in the West Midlands, including studies of urban heat islands and scenario modelling of bus electrification as a part of the WM-Adapt, WM-Net-Zero and WM-Air projects
Work led by Dr Tom Clemens (University of Edinburgh) examining the effects of air pollution on birth outcomes in Scotland

The studies make use of a range of CERC tools, including ADMS-Urban, ADMS-Urban Temperature & Humidity, ADMS 6.

Links to all the publications are available here:
https://cerc.co.uk/environmental-software/CERC-coauthor-publications.html

We look forward to continuing these collaborations during 2026.

Booking is now open for the ADMS User Group Meetings, 11-12 November 2026, Manchester

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

You can now book your tickets for the 2026 ADMS User Group Meetings, which will be held at voco Manchester on 11th and 12th November.

The annual ADMS User Group Meetings are a great opportunity to hear the latest ADMS model news and advice from CERC consultants and model developers, to hear talks by model users about their own applications of the software, and to network with other model users.

Tickets are available to order through Eventbrite until 23:30 on Monday 26th October. Organisations with a valid software support contract are entitled to one or more tickets free of charge depending on the type of licence held. The draft programme will be published in the summer.

Modelling data centres in ADMS 6 - free upgrade to 1000 point sources

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

CERC first released ADMS in 1994, and much has changed since then. Computers are more powerful, disc space more plentiful and the modelling requirements of users have changed. After listening to the feedback during the 2025 ADMS UGM, we have revisited ADMS 6's 'point' source limit.

Anyone attending the UGM will have noted that data centres were a hot topic. Modelling data centres demands the inclusion of hundreds of point sources, and the current default licence limit is proving too restrictive. We are therefore increasing the default from 300 to 1000 in the next ADMS 6 release, due in late Spring / early summer 2026.

However, there is no need to wait for that release if you are finding the current point source count is holding you back. For any user with support, simply get in touch with us, giving your licence details, and we will issue you with an upgraded licence, free of charge.

We are working hard on ADMS 6.1 right now. As well as increasing the number of point sources, we are also adding functionality for determining the probability of exceeding air pollution limits for sources which are only on for a limited number of hours, such as back-up generators supporting data centres. Details on this and more will be given as we progress towards the next ADMS release.

Hint: If you select Contact helpdesk from the Help menu in ADMS, it will pre-fill a new email for you with the relevant licence information we need, so you don’t need to type it.

UK Environment Agency Thermal Transport of Air Pollution from Regulated Industries (TAPRI) project reports published

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The UK Environment Agency have published a suite of reports resulting from their research project to assess the impacts of thermal air flows on atmospheric pollutant dispersion.

The TAPRI project explored how certain local weather patterns - thermal flows such as sea breezes, warm city air, or cold air from hillsides - can affect how air pollution disperses from industrial and waste sites. Real-world examples, data analysis, and computer modelling were used to explore how often these weather patterns occur, how much they impact air quality, and how they might change in the future.

There are six reports, comprising summary reports, stakeholder consultation and an exploration of the project outcomes.

The CERC report is titled Case studies on thermal flow conditions. CERC's analyses of meteorological, land use and topographical data for selected 'pilot areas' are presented, leading to a better understanding of thermal flows. We explored approaches that could be used to model air quality impacts of thermal flows, using the models ADMS and KLAM-21 and using Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) data.

The work was carried out by CERC in collaboration with Air Quality Consultants (AQC) and John Moncrieff (University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences), as part of Defra's Research Development & Evidence Framework Agreement.

The image shows 'The Barber' katabatic wind that blows down the Grey Valley in Greymouth, New Zealand.

Assessing health and financial impacts of county-wide air quality policy

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

As part of their Air Quality Strategy, Oxfordshire County Council have released their report describing the generation of data for assessing the health impacts and associated financial costs of air pollution. The impacts were calculated using a combination of CERC's ADMS-Urban model and University of Birmingham's Air Quality Lifecourse Assessment Tool (AQ-LAT). The AQ-LAT calculates the impact of PM_2.5 and NO₂ pollution on health outcomes, mortality and associated healthcare costs.

To create input for AQ-LAT, CERC modelled air pollution concentrations associated with the introduction of a range of positive interventions. These interventions included both national policies, such as achieving Net-Zero, and local policies, such as introducing all electric bus routes in selected towns.

The effectiveness of each policy was assessed by comparing modelled results from each policy scenario with the baseline. We generated highly detailed pollution maps across Oxfordshire using ADMS-Urban and then processed outputs to generate the air pollution data required as input to AQ-LAT. The first figure shows a detailed pollution map, focused on Oxford.

Our combined results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of certain policies; the second figure shows how Oxfordshire ranked the health savings of single-sector interventions using AQ-LAT. Reduction in industrial emissions, tighter regulation on domestic wood burning, and displacing road freight are the most impactful single sector interventions.

Multi-sector interventions, such as the National Net-Zero Pathway, result in the biggest gains for human health. Please see CERC and Oxfordshire County Council's ADMS-Urban and ADMS-Roads User Group meeting presentation for more details.

ADMS-Urban and AQ-LAT are extremely compatible, and together represent a product that is detailed, scalable, and informative. Please get in touch if you would like to know more.