Reefton Air Quality Monitoring
There were 7 exceedences of the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Air Quality) Regulations 2004 for PM10 in Reefton during 2011 (see Figure 1). The highest 24hr average PM10 was 68 micrograms/m3 on the 30th June.
An exceedence occurs when there has been an average of more than 50 micrograms/m3 of PM10 recorded over a 24 hour period. PM10 is a measure of the amount of small particles in the air (smaller than 10 micrometers). These small particles tend to cause respiration problems at higher levels.
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Figure 1. Graph showing daily average PM10 for Reefton 2011 with exceedences of the national guideline in red (NB: missing data due to machine failure).
Wind strength and direction, as well as daily temperature variations, have a lot to do with the fluctuations in air quality. This is the likely cause of the lower number of exceedences recorded this winter compared to the past few years.
Annual exceedences of the National Standard since 2006
| |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
| Number of exceedences (over whole year) |
16 |
25 |
18 |
16 |
22 |
7 |
| Max recorded 24hr average (µg/m3) |
86 |
129 |
78 |
91 |
99 |
68 |
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Table 1. Number of yearly exceedences of the Resource Management Regulations for PM10 and the maximum recorded 24 hour averages at the Reefton air quality site since 2006.