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Local Air Quality Management: Monitoring
This monitoring of a number of different pollutants has provided valuable information to assist in the air quality review and assessment process and allows us to assess present concentrations against the Government's air quality objectives.
DEFRA Air Pollution Information Bands
Sensitive individuals are people who suffer from heart and lung diseases, including asthma, particularly if they are elderly. |
Air quality monitoring is carried out at a number
of locations and using a range of techniques of varying complexity
across Sussex. For example, simple, cheap nitrogen diffusion tubes
are used widely (over 100 monitoring points across Sussex) and
can provide information to compare with the annual mean objective
for that pollutant. More complex, automated monitoring is carried
out in roadside environments as well as in urban background and
rural sites, to gather a full picture of air quality across Sussex.
There are currently 10 local authority funded automatic air pollution
monitors across Sussex, with an additional DEFRA funded site in
East Sussex (Lullington Heath). 
The exact location of the automatic monitoring
sites, classification (e.g. roadside, urban background, rural),
and species monitored can be found on the 
The Department of Environment Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA) publishes daily air quality bulletins based on
a national network of air quality monitoring known as the Automated
Urban Network (AUN). The information is published as Air Pollution
Information Bands for five pollutants. The bands are Low, Moderate,
High and Very High (see Table below) and relate to the potential
for the levels of pollution to impact on the health of the population.
These daily bulletins are available at