CAQI Common Air Quality Index--update with PM(2.5) and sensitivity analysis.
The CAQI or Common Air Quality Index was proposed to facilitate the comparison of air quality in European cities in real-time. There are many air quality indices in use in the world. All are somewhat different in concept and presentation and comparing air quality presentations of cities on the internet was virtually impossible. The CAQI and the accompanying website www.airqualitynow.eu and app were proposed to overcome this problem in Europe. This paper describes the logic of making an index, in particular the CAQI and its update with a grid for PM2.5. To assure a smooth transition to the new calculation scheme we studied the behaviour of the index before and after the changes. We used 2006 Airbase data from 31 urban background and 27 street stations all across Europe (that were monitoring PM2.5 in 2006). The CAQI characterises a city by a roadside and urban background situation. It also insists on a minimum number of pollutants to be included in the calculation. Both were deemed necessary to improve the basis for comparing one city to another. A sensitivity analysis demonstrates the comparative behaviour of the street and urban background stations and presents the sensitivity of the CAQI outcome to the pollutants included in its calculation.
DCMR Environmental Protection Agency Rijnmond, PO Box 843, 3100AV Schiedam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: Sef.vandenelshout@dcmr.nl.
Sef
S
van den Elshout
Airparif, 7 Rue Crillon, 75004 Paris, France. Electronic address: Karine.leger@airparif.asso.fr.
Karine
K
Léger
Heich Consult, Bergiusweg 1, 50354 Hürth, Germany. Electronic address: Heich@heich-consult.de.
Hermann
H
Heich
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis* / Q000592:standards; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002947:Cities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005060:Europe; D052638:Particulate Matter / Q000032:analysis* / Q000592:standards
D000393:Air Pollutants; D052638:Particulate Matter
Air quality index; PM(2.5); Public awareness; Urban air quality