Jim Co - Chairs Air Pollution 21

Jim co-chaired the 21^st meeting on Air Quality Modelling, Monitoring and Management held at Certosa di Pontignano, Universita Degli Studi di Siena from the 3^rd to the 5^th of June 2013.  Read his welcome address below.

Welcome Address.  Air Pollution 21

Welcome to the Twenty First International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution held in Certosa di Pontignano, Universita Degli Studi di Siena, Italy and organised by the Wessex Institute of Technology and the University of the West of England.   This successful international meeting builds upon the prestigious outcomes of the 20 preceding conferences beginning with Monterrey, Mexico in 1993 and most recently in Malta in 2011 and A Coruna, Spain in 2012. I am delighted that the Co-Chairs from that first meeting in Monterrey, Professors Brebbia and Zanetti, are here today to contribute to this meeting.  The Air Pollution series of   meetings has attracted outstanding contributions from leading researchers from around the world. The peer reviewed papers selected for presentation and included in the Conference Proceedings have been permanently stored in the WIT eLibrary as Transactions of the Wessex Institute (see http://library.witpress.com). These collected papers provide an important record of the development of science and policy pertaining to air pollution. To have reached a total of twenty one successful conferences on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution is a significant achievement and I would like to thank the many colleagues in academia and practice around the world who have contributed to this series of meetings. Undoubtedly, the series has filled a significant gap in the conference landscape and during the 21 year period there have been many competitor and complementary conferences   launched. That the conference series continues to grow and meet the demands of a discerning market is testament to the quality of the science and policy presented at the meetings, the publication formats and the quality of the conference venues.

The twenty one conferences in this series have discussed many important air pollution issues and the international nature of the attendees has ensured that of the conference findings and conclusions enjoy a wide and rapid dissemination amongst the air pollution science and policy communities. The conferences to date have concluded that despite the long history of attempts to manage the consequences of air pollution the issue remains one of the most challenging problems facing the international community. The conference series has demonstrated the wide spread nature of the air pollution phenomena and has explored in great depth the impacts of air pollution on human health and the environment. Conference presentations have explored the causes of air pollution from transport, manufactured goods and services and discussed the often unintended, but none the less real, impacts on the atmospheric environment at scales from the local to the global. A particular strength of the conference series has been the attention given to regulatory and, more recently, market solutions to air pollution management.  Conference delegates have explored a range of regulatory successes in minimising such impacts but equally have recognised that the continuing development of the global economy bring new pressures upon the ability of the atmosphere to process pollutants and to safely remove them.   The willingness of governmental authorities to move quickly to regulate air pollution is often balanced by concerns over the economic impact of such regulation. This frequently results in a lag between the scientific knowledge about the nature, scale and effect of air pollution and the implementation of appropriate, targeted and timely legislation. 

The conference series has consistently acknowledged that science remains the key to identifying the nature and scale of air pollution impacts and reaffirmed that science is essential in the formulation of policy relevant information for regulatory decision-making.  The conference series also recognised, at a very early stage, that science alone will not improve a polluted atmosphere. The scientific knowledge derived from well designed studies needs to be allied with further technical and economic studies in order to ensure cost effective and efficient mitigation. In turn, the science, technology and economic outcomes are necessary but not sufficient. Increasingly, the conference series has recognised that the outcome of such research need to be contextualised within well formulated communication strategies that help policy makers and citizens to understand and appreciate the risks and rewards arising from air pollution management.  Consequently, the conference series has enjoyed a wide range of high quality presentations that develop the fundamental science of air pollution and an equally impressive range of presentations that places these new developments within the frame of mitigation and management of air pollution. The peer reviewed nature of the conference volumes enables policy makers to confidently use the new findings to formulate sustainable decisions and to build public acceptance and understanding of the nature and scale of the air pollution problem.

This conference brings together contributions from scientists from around the world to present recent work on various aspects of the air pollution phenomena. Notable in each of the twenty preceding conferences in this series has been the opportunity to foster scientific exchange between participants. New collaborations amongst scientists and between scientists and policy makers or regulators have arisen through contacts made in this series and each meeting has provided a further opportunity for identifying new areas of air pollution science demanding collaborative investigation. Contributions in the twenty first conference in the Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution series continue to address a broad range of urgent scientific and technical developments in our understanding of the cause, consequence and management of air pollution.  

In conclusion I would like to thank the authors for their contributions and to acknowledge the eminent members of the International Scientific Advisory Committee for their assistance with the organisation of the conference and in particular for their support in peer reviewing the papers.

Thank you.

Jim Longhurst

Siena, Italy

June 2013

Jim Delivers Keynote Presentation at Air Pollution 21, Siena, Italy

Read the abstract of his paper below.

Abstract

A Critique of the Local Air Quality Management Process in the United Kingdom.

James Longhurst, Jo Barnes, Enda Hayes and Tim Chatterton

University of the West of England, Bristol, U.K

This presentation will provide an overview of the current position of Local Air Quality Management as practiced in the United Kingdom. It will assess the current approach within a perspective drawn from an analysis of historical attempts to manage air pollution, provide a diagnosis of the current situation and offer a prognosis for the future management of air quality.

Specifically the paper will ask why, despite our knowledge of harm, do we continue to do little to change the behaviours that cause air pollution problems?  It is recognized that the cause of air quality problems in the UK is almost, but not exclusively, traffic related. This is   a function of our desire for personal mobility without thought for the consequences of our decisions and actions on the health, wellbeing and   environments shared with fellow citizens. 

National air pollution control actions are well defined and appropriate for lowering the overall burden of air pollution but the spatial  patterns of air pollution  are not uniformly distributed across the UK space and thus not simply a question of overall burden. Rather it is a picture of burden concentrated in selected areas with the consequences often – but not always- borne by the more disadvantaged or weakest communities. This burden is, of course, inflicted upon them by the travel habits of others. National pollution control actions, often as part of EU requirements, have improved individual vehicle emissions per kilometer travelled, and reduced industrial and power station emissions through improved combustion techniques or post combustion control. This is necessary action but not sufficient to address the scale and complexity of the problems. Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) is the process carried out by UK local authorities to identify areas of poor air quality through a review and assessment process. Having identified such areas according to guidance and regulation provided by central government, a local authority declares an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA)  and develops and Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP). However, some 60% of UK local authorities now have one or more AQMAs and in such areas, widely distributed across the UK space, concentrations continue to exceed targets and public health is affected.  The AQAP component of LAQM is intended to improve local air quality but clearly has failed to deliver its intended policy goals.   That this situation continues, despite action from the late 1990s and a policy intention that all parts of the UK space will have achieved air quality objectives identified by Government by 2005, can be considered a failure of political will nationally and locally  and hence it can be described as a mismanagement of air quality. This continues to occur despite compelling and growing evidence about the spatial extent of the problem, the magnitude of the concentrations and the impact on public health.