Rose presents at Regional Studies Association South West Branch Conference

Rose gave a presentation on carbon management in the Bristol Region at the South West Branch of the Regional Studies Association conference at UWE on 23rd January. Rose's presentation included a review of current climate policy and emissions in the Bristol region and an overview of her research, before discussing some of the methods and challenges in emissions estimates and forecasts. Rose's presentation can be downloaded here.

Consultation on UK application for an extension to meet EU air quality limits

Defra is seeking views on the UK application to the European Commission for an extension to meet air quality targets for Particulate Matter (PM₁₀). The application for an extension will be submitted to the European Commission as soon as possible after this consultation has closed on 10 March.

 

PM₁₀ is made up of very small particles of soot and dust in the air, less than 10 micrometers in diameter (human hair ranges from 17-180 micrometers in diameter). The sources of these particles include transport, industrial plants, construction, and extremely small particles carried on the wind from neighbouring countries. There is also a small amount from natural sources, such as dust blown from Africa or sea salt.

 

Most other Member States have also reported some breaches of the EU PM₁₀ limits since they came into force in 2005: 24 out of 27 reported breaches of the limit in 2007. They will also need to apply to the European Commission for additional time.

 

Levels of PM₁₀ have been falling across the UK. However, in eight areas breaches of the PM₁₀ limit values have been reported to the European Commission since they came into force in 2005 and so additional time to meet the limits is needed.

The extension would enable current and planned measures to take effect to reduce PM₁₀ levels to within the EU limits by the extended deadline of 2011.

 

Consultation documents are available to download from the Defra website http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/air-quality/index.htm.  The deadline for responses is 10^th March 2009.

 

Rose to present at South West Branch of the Regional Studies Association conference

Rose is to present at the 1st annual conference of the South West branch of the Regional Studies Association, on Friday 23rd January. Rose will be presenting an overview of her research on carbon management in the Bristol region. The conference aims to facilitate and stimulate dialogue between policy makers and academics with an interest in England's South West region, in an attempt to identify ways to enhance and improve the working of our economy and to make the region a better place to live. More information can he found here: http://www.regional-studies-assoc.ac.uk/events/future.asp

LAQM Training Days 2009 - booking form available

It won't have escaped your notice that air quality management in 2009 is set to see some changes with the imminent publication of the new Local Air Quality Management Policy and Technical Guidance and tools to facilitate report preparation and submission. To ease air quality professionals into this Review & Assessment year and help them to fully understand the implications of these changes, the Air Quality Management Resource Centre, UWE, and Air Quality Consultants Ltd will be holding a series of Training Days during March 2009. Sessions will be held throughout England (see dates and venues below) and will provide delegates with, among other things, advice on the preparation of LAQM reports (Review & Assessment Reports and Air Quality Action Plans) under the new Technical Guidance, the online USA template and the web submission tool and LAQM support tools. Please click here to access further information and the registration form.

10/3/09 Bristol (hosted by Bristol City Council)
19/3/09 Reading (hosted by the Environment Agency)
23/3/09 York (hosted by York City Council)

Further dates may be announced depending on demand. Click here to receive email notification of training sessions and other upcoming AQMRC activities and here to subscribe to the AQMRC Latest News for RSS feed updates.

The Welsh Assembly Government (10/2/2009) and the Scottish Government (13/2/2009) are also hosting LAQM training sessions in Cardiff and Edinburgh respectively. Please contact us for further information on these training sessions.

On Thursday 23^rd January Jim Longhurst will be speaking at the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education’s (http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/) training seminar being held at Warwick University.  Jim will speak on the subject of Research and Enterprise in Higher Education.

 

Back in November Jim Longhurst gave an invited talk on the subject of ‘Major environmental challenges and responses’  at the Great Western Research Conference  ‘Future Imperfect’. The film of Jim’s talk can now be viewed as a streamed webcast on the GWR web site at http://www.greatwesternresearch.ac.uk/FutureImperfect.php

 

Enda Hayes, Tim Chatterton and Jim Longhurst were submitted as part of the University’s submission to sub panel 32 Geography and Environmental Studies. 70% of this submission was judged as being of internationally recognised quality or internationally excellent. See the RAE web page at http://www.rae.ac.uk/ and http://www.built-environment.uwe.ac.uk/research/newsDisplayPublic.asp?NewsID=1143&rss=True

 

Promotion to Senior Research Fellow

Congratulations to Dr Enda Hayes on his well deserved promotion to Senior Research Fellow in AQMRC. Read Enda’s web page at  http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/enda.html

LAQM Training Days 2009 - booking form available

It won’t have escaped your notice that air quality management in 2009 is set to see some changes with the imminent publication of the new Local Air Quality Management Policy and Technical Guidance and tools to facilitate report preparation and submission. To ease air quality professionals into this Review & Assessment year and help them to fully understand the implications of these changes, the Air Quality Management Resource Centre, UWE, and Air Quality Consultants Ltd will be holding a series of Training Days during March 2009. Sessions will be held throughout England (see dates and venues below) and will provide delegates with, among other things, advice on the preparation of LAQM reports (Review & Assessment Reports and Air Quality Action Plans) under the new Technical Guidance, the online USA template and the web submission tool and LAQM support tools. Please click here to access further information and the registration form.

10/3/09 Bristol (hosted by Bristol City Council)
19/3/09 Reading (hosted by the Environment Agency)
23/3/09 York (hosted by York City Council)

Further dates may be announced depending on demand. Click here to receive email notification of training sessions and other upcoming AQMRC activities and here to subscribe to the AQMRC Latest News for RSS feed updates.

The Welsh Assembly Government (10/2/2009) and the Scottish Government (13/2/2009) are also hosting LAQM training sessions in Cardiff and Edinburgh respectively. Please contact us for further information on these training sessions.

South West EP-UK & AQMRC 11th Annual Conference - date change

Scrub 26th February 2009 from your diary and add 20th March! We're back to Bristol Zoo for the 11th Annual South West Environmental Protection UK and AQMRC Conference. The theme of the conference is Environmental Indicators, where next? The conference will address local authority environmental indicators (e.g. air quality, climate change, land, noise, etc). Detail agenda to follow shortly.