Air Quality Management

Air quality management refers to the assessment, analysis and mitigation of air quality issues. CERC provides air quality management services to city municipalities, local authorities, national government and agencies, the European Commission, developers and planners. We’ve assessed air quality across cities as diverse as London, Singapore, Tbilisi and Cape Town.

CERC has been assisting UK local authorities with their Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) responsibilities since 1995.  We welcome opportunities to assist with any aspect of air quality Annual Status/Progress Reports, and we closely follow Review and Assessment Technical Guidance.

We carry out air quality modelling using ADMS-Urban to assess pollution concentrations against air quality standards. To ensure that the model set-up provides a robust representation of the area of concern, the model is carefully verified against monitoring data.

We run the verified model to produce contour plots, at sufficiently high resolution to support decision-making, such as the declaration of Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs). We take care to tailor our modelling to the specific requirements of the client, whether assessing air quality at a single junction or across an entire urban area.

We also apply techniques such as: analysis of measured data; source apportionment; population exposure calculations; and testing of mitigation scenarios, such as Clean Air Zones or Low Emissions Zones.

We use our Emissions Inventory Toolkit EMIT to compile detailed emissions inventory data, using up-to-date, detailed emission factors. We’re experts in manipulating existing emissions inventories, such as the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) and National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI).

Urban air quality includes descriptions of some air quality management projects we have undertaken.