Cork City Air Quality Strategy

Air quality objectives and action themes

4.3 Theme 2: Air Quality Monitoring At the core of the Air Quality Strategy is the existence of an air quality monitoring system. Cork City Council has worked with UCC to develop and improve upon the existing air quality monitoring infrastructure. The partnership has focused on developing the most accurate and cost-efficient method of air quality monitoring. To ensure that the highest quality monitoring apparatus are deployed, the City Council engaged air quality experts in UCC’s Centre for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry (CRAC) to assess the potential to deploy a low cost district level, real-time air monitoring network, measuring PM 2.5 , across the city. A correction factor has been applied to the real-time data to increase the accuracy of the PM data (accurate to within 2.5% of reference sensors at the time of instrument deployment) and the air quality information for specific areas is displayed on the Cork City Air Quality Dashboard Going forward it is hoped that the data from the EPA air quality monitoring stations can also be displayed on the dashboard. The potential to develop a trial, air quality forecasting system will be investigated in collaboration with experts from UCC’s Centre for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry.

Rooftop Air Quality Monitoring Station (Credit Daniel Kelly, www.fondriest.com)

Theme Summary » Develop a district level air quality monitoring infrastructure in Cork city. » Ensure that the highest quality testing apparatus are available to Cork City Council staff. » Make air pollution updates available to the public.

» Make Live Data available to the Public via an air quality dashboard. » Investigate the potential to develop a trial, air quality forecasting system. » Make annual air quality report available to the public.