We've all heard about pea-souper fogs; the thick dark smogs which have hung over UK cities made of huge amounts of air pollution and having a yellow, green or dark hue about it. Many early deaths have been attributed to these fogs, the particles and sulphur dioxide causing not only long term respiratory disorders but also proving deadly to many of those who already have disorders; especially the young and the elderly.
To counter this, London in particular has been very active in trying to reduce the amount of emissions into the city trying to promote clean forms of transport such as hybrid and electric cars as well as tubes and bicycles, since typically road traffic can be a huge source of pollution, especially older unclean cars.
The way this is all tracked is of course by taking air quality assessments; London having such problems has a huge network of air testing units scattered across the whole city such that accurate pollution levels and forecasts for pollution to give residents and people travelling through those areas warning about the pollution.
Air quality assessments aren't only for already polluted areas though, and they can come in several forms including dust monitoring on building sites and chemical emissions from industrial plants for example. It can be very important to make sure building work doesn't have the side effect of covering local areas in massive amounts of cement dust, for this reason it's important to have assessments to point out where dust sheets might be beneficial and where spraying down piles of dust could help reduce the inconvenience of the building work for local residents.
Industrial emissions are generally important to get right before the plant is even built since chimney height can be an important factor in reducing chemical concentrations as well as the location of the plant and the proximity to any built up areas and retrofitting scrubbers could end up being more expensive.
So, air quality assessments play a huge part in the world today and checking out the local air quality should be something you consider when you're planning to move somewhere, it could save you years of your life!
