National Air Quality Strategy

The National Air Quality Strategy Published with commitments to achieve new air... 

The EPA (1990) established a system of Local Authority Air Pollution Control (LAAPC) requiring the competent authorities to ensure that smaller air pollution sources meet specific emission limits. In 1997 Central Government published the National Air Quality Strategy, setting air quality objectives for local authorities up to 2005. 

The motivation for ensuring good indoor air quality should be obvious. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 emphasizes the need for standards to protect the health and safety of workers. To fulfill this need, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has developed a strategy for disseminating information that assists employers to protect their workers from workplace hazards. This strategy includes the development of Special NIOSH Hazard Reviews, which support and complement the major standards development and hazard documentation activities of the Institute. These documents deal with... 

Without doubt, the top-priority application of air quality models is the determination of emission controls needed to achieve ambient air quality standards. With the re-examination of transportation control strategies and with the pressures of fuel substitutions, refinements well bqrond the traditional proportional models are imperative. Where validated diffusion models are available, they should be used to recalculate the emission requirements that came from initial hasty efforts to implement the Qean Air Act Amendments of 1970. This is the greatest national service that could be performed by the air quality modelers at present. Before this can be achieved, however, the institutional apparatus must provide the impetus and resources called for in a recent National Academy of Sciences report to the U.S. Senate. 

The most direct approach to assessing the effectiveness of a control strategy or strategies would at first glance appear to be an examination of the relationship between reductions in emissions and measured changes in air quality. As discussed in detail in Rethinking the Ozone Problem in Urban and Regional Air Pollution (National Research Council, 1991), this unfortunately has not been possible for a variety of reasons. For example, as discussed earlier, pollutant concentrations... 

Recent concern for the role of sulfate in acidic deposition has intensified the need for a more accurate estimation of natural sulfur emissions in the United States. The magnitude and the spatial and temporal distribution of natural sulfur emissions must be quantified in order to be useful in efforts to predict the effectiveness of various control strategies for acid deposition. The inventoiy estimates described in this paper predict monthly sulfur emissions from each county in the contiguous United States. Improvements in the methodology used to calculate this natural emissions inventory may be a useful guide in the calculation of the national emissions inventories of other naturally emitted compounds which have the potential to make significant contributions to regional air quality. 

How effective are proposed control or management strategies This question could pertain to the confidence with which a standard will be met. For example, Hanna et al. (2001) assess the uncertainty associated with estimates of predicted ambient ozone levels subject to a particular emission scenario, and Abdel-Aziz Frey (2004) evaluate the probability of non-compliance with United States National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone based upon uncertainty in emission inventories that are propagated through an air quality model. A probability distribution of estimated exposures can be compared with a point estimate of an exposure benchmark in order to determine the probability that the benchmark will be exceeded and, if so, by how much. 

The surveys by coimtry include an overview of Air quality monitoring, Atmospheric Chemistry research and Air pollution modelling. For all topics, Institutions and groups involved, Historical aspects. Current projects and studies performed in the last 5 years. National strategies. Achievements, and Publications are discussed. An analysis of problems and the identification of needs is made collectively for all the countries. 

National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) have been established for ozone (qv), nitrogen oxides, lead (qv), carbon monoxide (qv), sulfur dioxide, and particulates. The standards have been set to safeguard human health and the environment. Many areas of the country violate one or more of the NAAQS. To achieve healthful air for all citizens, the states establish an implementation plan for each area that violates the NAAQS for any of the six criteria pollutants. The plan is a strategy designed to achieve sufficient emission reductions to meet the NAAQS within the deadline. Based on the implementation plan, specific regulations are written which govern the operations emitting the pollutant. 

Most cormtries have put in place legislative frameworks to control arrd improve the quality of air. The general pattern of such a strategy appears in Fig. 8. While air qrrality management strategies have supranational, national, arrd local componerrts, the final task of managing air quality is usually devolved to the local level, typically that of a city, coimty, or state. 

State Implementation Plans (SIPs) are federally approved plans developed by state (or local) air quality management authorities to attain and maintain the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Generally, these SIPs are a state s (local) air quality rules and regulations that are considered an acceptable control strategy once approved by the USEPA. The purpose of SIPs is to control the amoimt and types of pollution for any given area or region of the United States. 

Minor source permits. Minor source permits are designed to prevent the construction of sources that would interfere with attainment or maintenance of the national ambient air quality standards or violate the control strategy in a... 

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