Tim appears on the BBC

On Monday 2nd November, the BBC screened its regional Inside Out programme containing a feature on air pollution. Focussing in particular on Bedford, the programme contained interviews with Tim from AQMRC, along with Ed Dearnley of EPUK and Barry Williams from Bedford Borough Council.

The programme is available on the BBC I-Player site here.

15th IUAPPA World Clean Air Congress - Call for abstracts

Abstracts are now invited for the 15th International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Association's World Clean Air Congress
Date: September 12-16, 2010
Place: Vancouver, British Columbia
Conference Theme: Achieving Environmental Sustainability in a Resource Hungry World
Abstract Submission Deadline: March 12, 2010
Further details available here or visit their website www.iuappa2010.com.

AQMRC/EPUK-SW Annual Conference - Presentations now available online

The presentations from the AQMRC, UWE and Environmental Protection-UK SW Divison Annual Conference ' Air Quality Management: the 11th hour' are now available on the AQMRC website http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/training.html.

The conference provided a positive message for the future of air quality management through integration with other disciplines, such as transport (John Murlis), climate change (Guy Hitchcock), land use planning (Claire Holman) and noise (Steve Crawshaw and Tim Clarke), and Mark Broom presented Neath Port Talbot as a case study of collaborative agency working with regard to the industrial steelworks. There was also a policy update from Robert Vaughan reporting on Defra's approach to the NO2 time extension and a reminder from Ben Barratt to ensure that policy measures are accountable to the science. Ben Williams, the 2008 winner of the EPUK student conference presented his research measuring nuisance dust from a waste transfer station and Phil Mulligan's summary of the EP-UK Biomass and Air Quality event from the previous week highlighted one of the new and increasing considerations for air quality management.

In all, the feedback from the day was equally as positive and the presentations were extremely well-rated.

If you have any suggestions for future conference topics, do let us know at aqmrc@uwe.ac.uk.

Tim is Keynote Speaker on Health and Planning

On Monday, Tim attended the GO-East "Multi-Professional Symposium on Health and the Built Environment" in Cambridge. He was invited as one of the keynote speakers to make a presentation on "Urban Design and Health", alongside Neil Blackmore from the NHS Healthy Urban Development Unit and Dr Tim Crayford, Chief Medical Advisor for DfT.

Tim's presentation can be viewed here.

In the afternoon, Tim got back to his roots and participated in the Norfolk workshop with members of Norwich City Council, NHS Norfolk, and Tim O'Riordan (Emeritus Professor at UEA and Sheriff of the City of Norwich).

Port Talbot Study Presented at Openair Workshop

Tim attended the Openair/Aitrack workshop "Towards Smarter Air Quality Analysis" at the Institute of Physics on Thursday. At the workshop he presented a poster illustrating the work that AQMRC has carried out for the Welsh Assembly Government, using Openair and R to analyse pollution data from 11 monitoring stations in the Neath Port Talbot area.

A copy of the poster can be viewed here

AQMRC - EPUK SW Annual conference success

The Air Quality Management Resource Centre, UWE and Environmental Protection - South West Division joined forces once again yesterday to deliver an "excellent" Annual Conference entitled 'Air Quality Management - the 11th hour'. The conference was held, as in previous years, at the very welcoming Bristol Zoo which afforded delegates and speakers a extremely pleasant venue, access to the gardens and a splendid spread for lunch and tea. The talks, which were all excellently presented and thoroughly informative, explored the various ways in which air quality management can be achieved holistically through integration with other disciplines and by working with related parties, giving a highly positive feel to a, perhaps, ominously titled event. Further information on the individual talks together with the presentations themselves will be posted shortly on the AQMRC website.

Emissions of air pollutants down in EU-27

The European Community's air pollutant emission inventory report released by the European Environment Agency finds that in 2007, sulphur oxides (SOx) emissions were down by 72% from 1990 levels. The downward emission trend of three main pollutants which cause ground-level ozone continued in 2007: carbon monoxide (CO) fell by 57%, non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) were down by 47% and nitrogen oxides (NOx) have dropped 36%. EU-27 emissions of all four pollutants were lower in 2007 than in 2006.

Read more ... <http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/emissions-of-air-pollutants-down-in-eu-27?&utm_campaign=emissions-of-air-pollutants-down-in-eu-27&utm_medium=email&utm_source=EEASubscriptions>

Air quality vacancy at Bristol CC

Bristol City Council are now recruiting an Environmental Technical Support Officer for their environment team. The role will be mainly working on air quality, covering Bristol's monitoring sites and also working on other air quality projects, EMAS, water quality and GIS. Click here for further details.

Jimi chairs Defra review of monitoring for acidifying and eutrophying pollutants

Jimi Irwin has chaired a review of monitoring for acidifying and eutrophying pollutants for Defra. Such measurements have been an important part of the United Kingdom measurement programme since the first national precipitation chemistry network was established in 1986. They have played an important role in determining pollutant deposition over the country and in identifying areas where research was necessary to improve our understanding of atmospheric chemistry and deposition processes. More recently, they have provided a tool for the implementation of a critical loads and levels approach to environmental protection.

The Review Panel reviewed current monitoring with regard to species measured, locations, frequency of measurement, methodology and quality assurance. They also considered the status of the UK supersites at Harwell and Auchencorth Moss within the European Evaluation and Monitoring programme. In reaching their conclusions the Panel drew on material provided by the network operators, past reports and also the findings of a user survey. Relevant material is available on the NERC open research archive.

AQMRC - EPUK SW Annual Conference back on!

The 11th Annual Conference organised by Air Quality Management Resource Centre, UWE and Environmental Protection SW Division is back on after being postponed from its usual slot in March. The conference will now be held on Wednesday 30th September. The title of the event is 'Air Quality Management - The 11th Hour' focusing on the fact that the Air Quality Objective dates have now largely been reached and EU Limit Values are on the horizon.

The presentations selected will highlight the benefits of integrating air quality with other disciplines, e.g. transport, carbon management, health and land use planning. Defra's Robert Vaughan will set the scene with his keynote address and will be joined by speakers from Bristol City Council, King's College, London, University of London, Peter Brett Associates, Exeter University and Portsmouth University, including Ben Williams, winner of the 2008 Environmental Protection Student Day event. There will also be a conference exhibition for suppliers, consultants and academics to display their wares and research.

The venue remains the same, Bristol Zoo, and the conference fees will include delegate packs (including CPD certificate), buffet lunch and refreshments. For details and a link to the conference flier and registration form, please visit the AQMRC website http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/training.html or ring 0117 32 81626 for further information.

Jim and Simon go to Westminster

Jim and Simon were invited to the Great Western Research (GWR) event 'Innovation through Collaboration', Portcullis House, Westminster on 29th June. The event celebrated the achievements of the Great Western Research project to date and called for further funding to maintain momentum. Jim gave an enthusiastic presentation on his experiences as a research supervisor on Simon's PhD - made possible through the GWR initiative – and Simon presented an academic poster on his research. The event was well attended by GWR, Students, Fellows, Supervisors and Business Partners and joined by senior academics from across the South West and representatives of the SW-RDA, HEFCE, Research Councils, and the Technology Strategy Board. The event was sponsored by Phil Willis MP Chair of the Commons Select Committee responsible for science and technology. Go to Simon's webpage to see the poster and find out more about his research.

Jo presents at EPUK East Midlands Division AGM, Buxton

Jo Barnes gave a presentation on the 2009 LAQM Technical Guidance to the EPUK East Midlands Division AGM at the Tarmac Lime and Cement plant at Tunstead Quarry, in Buxton, Derbyshire last Thursday, 25th June. Malcolm Brown and Rhonda Newsham (British Geological Survey) also gave a very interesting talk on the use of GIS in assessing assessment of contaminated land exposure and Peter Grosvenor and Frank Emerson (Tarmac) spoke about the operations at the quarry and gave us a fascinating tour of the works. The presentations and tour were well-received by the audience of Environmental Protection Officers and Councillors from the region. [Photographed L-R Jo Barnes (UWE), Peter Grosvenor and Frank Emerson (Tarmac), Malcolm Brown and Rhonda Newsham (British Geological Survey.]

And the winner is...

...Rose Bailey from the AQMRC!

Rose was awarded a cash prize for her presentation at the Faculty of Environment and Technology Postgraduate Research Conference last Monday (15th June). Her talk on "Managing carbon emissions at the city scale: opportunities and challenges" outshone all of the other presentations from Bristol Institute of Technology (BIT) and Built and Natural Environment (BNE) postgrad students. Visit Rose's research webpage to read all about her research.

Well done, Rose!

The John Rose Award and Non-Exhaust Emissions - calling all postgrads - applications welcome

Atmospheric particle pollution has been linked to a number of health issues and is thought to be directly responsible for a reduction in the life expectancy of a person living in the UK by an average of 7-8 months. Road transport is a major source of atmospheric particle emissions, particularly within urban areas. Current legislation has only focused on reducing emissions from the exhaust pipe of vehicles. New studies have shown that other unregulated vehicle-related emissions, such as non-exhaust emissions, can equal or surpass exhaust contributions.

The winner of the John Rose Award 2008 from the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) was Samantha Lawrence, for her PhD research on non-exhaust particles. Samantha Lawrence has used the £1000 grant to publicise her work on non-exhaust emissions and to launch a campaign to encourage the Government to create appropriate legislation to control non-exhaust emissions. As part of this campaign, a Government e-petition has been created. You can add your name to the petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/non-exhaust/.

In collaboration with the IES, Samantha has also created an exciting new website with information on her research, interactive features and learning resources. Please visit www.ies-uk.org.uk/non-exhaust.

The IES hosts the John Rose Award every year to reward outstanding pieces of environmental post-graduate research, which have the potential to motivate people and facilitate environmental improvement. The £1000 grant is used to publicise the results of the work to the general public.

We are pleased to announce that applications for the 2009 John Rose Award are now welcome. The applicant must have completed, or be in the writing-up stages of a postgraduate piece of work that can contribute to positive environmental change. Upon winning the Award, applicants will receive £1000 to promote their research to the public, along with the chance to speak at the prestigous Burntwood Lecture to an audience of scientists and environmental professionals. The Award will be officially presented by Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency at the 2009 Burntwood Lecture on 11th November at the Royal Society in London.

Please visit http://www.ies-uk.org.uk/awards/awards.php for more information and to apply. The closing date for applications is 2nd October 2009.

Mofoluso's presentation at the AQMRC Seminar Series

Mofoluso recently gave a presentation to the University community as part of the AQMRC Seminar series, describing the current status of his PhD research. The presentation, "Applying remote sensing and GIS techniques to air quality and carbon management in the Niger Delta" gave insight to the methods Mofoluso is adopting for the research and can be accessed from his Research page on the AQMRC website.

Rose to present at International Conference on Human Ecology

Rose has had two abstracts accepted for the International Conference on Human Ecology, to be held at the University of Manchester from 29th June to 3rd July. The conference theme is 'Human Ecology for an urbanising world', and Rose will be presenting a paper entitled 'Managing carbon emissions at the city scale: opportunities and challenges' in the climate change and the urban environment session. Rose will also be presenting an overview of her research in the research paper workshop for PhD students. More information on the conference can be found on the Society for Human Ecology website

UWE and Cranfield NERC funded research on impacts of commercial composting

Read the recent press release on this NERC funded project at http://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/uwenews/article.asp?item=1470&year=2009.

Institute for Sustainability, Health and the Environment Inaugural Conference

More than 100 invited guests drawn from practitioners, researchers and policy makers in public health, local authorities, environment, planning, business and other organisations attended the inaugural conference of the Institute on April 21st . The conference entitled Anticipating Tomorrow for Change Today featured amongst others a presentation from the co-directors of ISHE, Judy Orme and Jim Longhurst outlining the vision, aims, capacity and capability of the Institute .

Read the associated press release here. http://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/uwenews/article.asp?item=1468&year=2009

The presentations from the conference will be available on the ISHE web site (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/ishe/) soon.

AQMRC Work Featured in Research and Knowledge Exchange Conference

The work of the Air Quality Management Resource Centre was presented at the Faculty of Environment and Technology’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Conference held on April 23rd 2009. Click here to see the presentation on AQMRC delivered by Jim Longhurst.

Biomass and Air Quality Guidance Consultation Now Online

The draft biomass and air quality guidance is now available on the Environmental Protection UK website for consultation. The link is:

www.environmental-protection.org.uk/biomass

The consultation period will run until Friday 8th May, responses should be sent to Ed Dearnley via post or email.

Environmental Protection UK
44 Grand Parade
Brighton
BN2 9QA

Email - ed.dearnley@environmental-protection.org.uk