airAlert is a pilot service that will send you free messages to your mobile and/or home telephones, informing you that poor air-quality is predicted in your area.

For more information on airAlert please select link to presentation below:

(airAlert PRESENTATION)

airAlert uses air-quality forecasts provided by our partners Kings College London ERG.

The forecasts are made daily and dispatched to the Suseex-air website,and will soon become avaiable via emial. The forecasts are made with reference to the UK (DEFRA) Air Quality Bandings for air pollutants, as described below and will be sent out as a short message to inform participants in airALERT.

The airAlert messages will have a short description of the forecasted "Pollution band" and will only be sent if the forecasted air quality is above "LOW" i.e. "MODERATE", "HIGH" or "VERY HIGH".

We estimate that the number of text messages we will dispatch should be between 30-40 during the summer of 2006. As Sussex experienced 30 exceedance days (higher than "MODERATE") in 2004.

 

Pollution Band & Numerical Index	Health Effect
1-3 (LOW)	Effects are unlikely to be noticed by people who know they are sensitive to air pollutants.
4-6 (MODERATE)	Mild effects are unlikely to require action, but sensitive people may notice them.
7-9 (HIGH)	Sensitive people may notice significant effects, and may have to act to reduce or avoid them (for example, by reducing time spent outdoors). Asthmatics will find that their reliever inhaler should reverse the effects of pollution on their lungs.
10 (VERY HIGH)	The effects of high levels of pollution on sensitive people may worsen when pollution becomes very high.

Air Pollution Bandings and Index and the Impact on the Health of People who are Sensitive to Air Pollution, the bandings are determined by the concentration of the pollutants and the type of pollutant. The banding concentrations and the type of pollutant are described below:

Band Index	Ozone		Nitrogen Dioxide		Sulphur Dioxide		Carbon Monoxide		PM10 Particles
	8 hourly running mean or hourly mean*		hourly mean		15 minute mean		8 hour running mean		24 hour running mean
	µgm³	ppb	µgm³	ppb	µgm³	ppb	mgm³	ppm	µgm³ (Grav. Equiv.)	µgm³ (TEOM)

Low
	1	0-33	0-16	0-95	0-49	0-88	0-32	0-3.8	0.0-3.2	0-21	0-16
	2	34-65	17-32	96-190	50-99	89-176	33-66	3.9-7.6	3.3-6.6	22-42	17-32
	3	66-99	33-49	191-286	100-149	177-265	67-99	7.7-11.5	6.7-9.9	43-64	33-49
Moderate
	4	100-125	50-62	287-381	150-199	266-354	100-132	11.6-13.4	10.0-11.5	65-74	50-57
	5	126-153	63-76	382-477	200-249	355-442	133-166	13.5-15.4	11.6-13.2	75-86	58-66
	6	154-179	77-89	478-572	250-299	443-531	167-199	15.5-17.3	13.3-14.9	87-96	67-74
High
	7	180-239	90-119	573-635	300-332	532-708	200-266	17.4-19.2	15.0-16.5	97-107	75-82
	8	240-299	120-149	636-700	333-366	709-886	267-332	19.3-21.2	16.6-18.2	108-118	83-91
	9	300-359	150-179	701-763	367-399	887-1063	333-399	21.3-23.1	18.3-19.9	119-129	92-99
Very High
	10	360 or more	180 or more	764 or more	400 or more	1064 or more	400 or more	23.2 or more	20 or more	130 or more	100 or more
* For ozone, the maximum of the 8 hourly and hourly mean is used to calculate the index value.