Maps of Air Quality Across Scotland

Introduction

On behalf of the Scottish Government, and as part of the Scottish Air Quality Database project, AEA provide mapped concentrations of pollutants on a 1 x 1 km square grid basis. These annual mean pollutant maps combine Scottish pollutant measurement data with the spatially disaggregated emissions information from the UK’s National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) to provide estimated pollutant concentrations for the whole of Scotland. The Scottish modelling methodology is based on the UK Pollution Climate Mapping (PCM) approach, used to model the annual mean background and roadside pollutant concentrations for the UK as a whole.

There are now sufficient monitoring sites in the SAQD for mapping to be undertaken for NO_x, NO₂ and PM₁₀ ffor Scotland using Scottish only monitoring data. The UK PCM methodology has been applied to provide pollutant maps of Scotland for the Scottish Government for 2009 using measurements exclusively from Scottish air quality monitoring sites and Scottish meteorology. The maps provide spatial representation of the annual mean concentrations of:

• gravimetric equivalent PM₁₀ concentration (PM₁₀), and
• NO_x and NO₂

The pollutant data used in the mapping work presented here uses appropriately scaled PM₁₀ monitoring data (FDMS, Partisol and VCM corrected TEOM data) and automatic monitoring data for NO_x and NO₂ in 2009, in conjunction with Scottish meteorology data (from RAF Leuchars) to create the Scotland-specific model.

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