The air quality of Sheffield is measured 24 hours a day 365 days a year by both sophisticated automatic equipment, and simple manual methods.
We currently own 6 automatic monitoring stations, measuring a variety of pollutants. The locations of the sites vary from time to time. In general they are sited in areas where we think air pollution may be at risk of going above Government air pollution objectives.
Our sites
We have automatic air quality monitors sited at:
- Tinsley Infant School - measuring fine particles (PM10 and PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide
- Lowfield School - measuring fine particles (PM10), sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide
- King Ecgbert's Old School Site - measuring fine particles (PM10), ozone and nitrogen dioxide
- Wicker - measuring fine particles (PM10), ozone and nitrogen dioxide
- Fir Vale School - measuring fine particles (PM10), sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide
- Waingate - measuring fine particles (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide
In addition there are 2 sites owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). These are stationary sites in the city centre and Tinsley.
Nitrogen dioxide
Nitrogen dioxide levels are also monitored at around 160 locations across Sheffield by ourselves and a number of community groups. Instead of complex and expensive analysers, simple passive diffusion tubes are used.
The tubes are cheap, manual, yet reliable indicators of air pollution.
Predicting air quality
In areas of Sheffield where we do not measure air pollution, we use a sophisticated Dispersion Model called Airviro, to predict the levels there.
We also use the model to forecast the likely future levels of air pollution in all areas of the city and to decide whether we will breach Government objectives and EU limit values or not.
Airviro takes into account hills, wind, temperature, cloud cover and the amount of pollution coming from different sources (eg road traffic, industry, commercial and residential heating).