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Air Quality
The National Environment Protection Measure for Ambient Air Quality (Air NEPM) requires all jurisdictions to report annually against the air quality standards.
When it made the Air NEPM, the National Environment Protection Council established a Peer Review Committee (PRC) to provide guidance to jurisdictions in developing monitoring plans and to advise on the adequacy of those plans, once developed.
While the Commonwealth reports annually to the National Environment Protection Council on its implementation of the Air NEPM, it is not required to carry out any air quality monitoring as there are currently no locations for which the Commonwealth has responsibility with a population over the 25,000 threshold. More information is available in the Commonwealth Monitoring Plan.
Monitoring plans for all other jurisdictions are also available.
The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has supported the development by the CSIRO, in conjunction with the Bureau of Meterology and the NSW and Victorian EPAs, of a full scale, real time air quality forecasting system for Australia. The model provides detailed 3D high-resolution forecasts of major weather and 24 air quality constituents on a daily basis, down to suburb levels.
The model has great potential for improving operational forecasting of air pollution across airsheds. Accurate daily forecasts of air quality for Australia's major urban centres have numerous uses. For example, in addition to aiding 'at risk' members of the population in planning their day-to-day activities, the forecasts may be used to estimate long-term health impacts, and also to project the benefits of reduced or more efficient motor vehicle usage (such as car pooling).
The system has been successfully trialed in Sydney and Melbourne, and is being refined for use in all cities in Australia.
More information on the Air Quality Forecasting System can be found at http://www.dar.csiro.au/info/AAQFS/.