Frank Kelly appointed as COMEAP’s new Chairman

Environmental Research Group director Professor Frank Kelly has been appointed as the new chairman of the influential Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP).

COMEAP draws its members from a range of specialist fields such as air quality science, atmospheric chemistry, toxicology, physiology, epidemiology, statistics, paediatrics and cardiology. There is also a "lay" member responsible for ensuring COMEAP work is accessible and understandable to the general public.

The group is an independent expert advisory committee which provides advice to Government departments and agencies, through the Chief Medical Officer, on all matters concerning the potential toxicity and subsequent health effects of air pollutants.

On his appointment Professor Kelly said:
"This is an exciting, albeit challenging time for those working in the field of air quality. If solutions are to be found that resolve the issue of poor air quality in major cities across the UK, there is a need to bring together a number of Government departments, and scientists from different disciplines to effectively utilise their collective knowledge. It is only through such partnerships that meaningful progress can be made in decreasing the public health impact of poor air quality."

Everyone here at King’s would like to congratulate Professor Kelly on his appointment and wish him every success in his new role.

Low Emission Zone Baseline Study Report

The Environmental Research Group at King’s in conjunction with the Health Effects Institute in America has produced a new report on the London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) as part of the insitute’s research program to measure the possible health outcomes of actions taken to improve air quality.


The LEZ came into effect in 2008 and restricts the entry of older, more polluting vehicles into Greater London. Professor Frank Kelly and colleagues conducted emissions and exposure modeling to estimate the projected effects of the LEZ implementation. They also assessed the feasibility of using medical records from private practices to evaluate the relationships between exposure to traffic and indicators of respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

The report also includes a critique by the HEI which concluded that this baseline study was a creative effort to lay the groundwork for studying the spatial and temporal changes in air pollutant concentrations and health outcomes in advance of a major regulatory intervention. It provides important lessons for future research into the health outcomes of actions to improve air quality.

Professor Kelly who led the study said:
"The London Low Emission Zone is a world leading traffic intervention scheme aimed at restricting entry of the most polluting vehicles into London and thereby improving air quality and the health of Londoners. Our evaluation of the initial phase of the LEZ has demonstrated its feasibility to achieve improved air quality. We are now eager to extend this work following the implementation of the long awaited phase 3 of the LEZ in January 2012.”

Read the full report here.

iPhone subscriber numbers published

Several thousand people use the London Air iPhone application to keep them informed about air pollution in the capital every day.

A recent audit of subscriber numbers has revealed new insights into the geographic distribution of the application’s users.

The analysis was performed in November and showed that the most subscribed boroughs were those in central London where air pollution concentrations are greatest and where a dense population of workers is likely to boost subscriber numbers.
The most subscribed boroughs and their associated user numbers are; Camden (3,543), Westminster (3,530), City of London (3,499), Kensington & Chelsea (3,476) and Ealing (3,466). Sites and boroughs in suburban and outer-London locations tend to have lower subscriber numbers, but even the least subscribed local authorities have 3,000 users active users.

See the full analysis here.

The new Daily Air Quality Index

Defra and the Devolved Administrations will change the air quality index for the UK on 1st January 2012.
The new index will be used to tell the public about daily changes in air quality using a 1-10 scale divided into four bands (‘low’, ‘moderate’, ‘high’ and ‘very high’).
This is similar to the current air quality index and in line with those used for sun and pollen exposure.

The new index will, for the first time, provide warnings of potentially health-damaging air pollution events before they happen to help susceptible people manage their condition and reduce the severity of their symptoms.

The new index also brings the division between low and moderate air pollution into line with the latest World Health Organisation recommendations and legal limits and also includes an index for PM_2.5 for the first time.
Compared to the current index, these changes will result in a greater frequency of days being described as having moderate, high and very high air pollution. This is linked to improved knowledge of air pollution and its health effects.

The new index was announced by Defra on 2nd December 2011 and we have been working hard to incorporate these changes into the wide range of LondonAir information systems.

Work will continue over the holiday period updating the LondonAir website and our iPhone, Android and Google Chrome applications. We will publish the updated version of the website and release new versions of the applications shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day.

Although we have strived to update all our systems and dissemination channels for the Jan 1st deadline, we have prioritised certain changes over others. There may be parts of our website and services such as our PM₁₀ Nowcast which will continue to be updated after January 1st.

We would like to thank our team of scientists, IT specialists and external collaborators for their hard work during the run up to Christmas.

On Air: Interview with Brent Council’s Davide Pascarella

Continuing our series of interviews with air quality officers, practitioners and researchers, this month we caught up with Brent Council’s Davide Pascarella as he was hanging up the holly in Brent Council’s tearoom.



(KCL) - What lead you to working in the air quality field?
(DPR) - I graduated from an Italian University a while ago where I specialised in hydrogeology. In 2002 I arrived in London without speaking English, and in 2004 I felt confident enough to enrol on a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Analysis and Assessment. This gave me an excellent grounding in contaminated land, air quality, the British legal system and then the prospect of working for Spelthorne Borough Council as a pollution control officer. Two years ago I moved to Brent Council as an Air Quality Officer (after working with water and soil now it was time to work with air!!).

(KCL) - What do you feel is your biggest achievement to date?
(DPR) - Well you know Air Mail is a very prestigious publication....

(KCL) - What projects are you working on at the moment?
(DPR) - I’m working on a couple of exciting projects:
Brent, as part of the West London Air Quality Group in collaboration with Transport Research Laboratories is working on a project to develop a Transport and Enhanced Emissions Model (TEEM). This is a system of tools which enables Boroughs to evaluate the impacts of transport emissions on air quality.
In the future we hope to make this available to other local authorities and interested stakeholders by developing it as a web-based tool.

Most recently I have undertaken a study to determine the optimal location of an Energy Centre within a local regeneration area. I modelled a number of scenarios in order to determine optimal stack heights and estimate maximum allowable emissions from the plant whilst considering the impacts upon sensitive receptors in tall buildings as well as ground level.

(KCL) - What do you think the future holds for air quality in London?
(PC) - As you know, air pollution is a major environmental risk to health linked to premature deaths worldwide. King College’s experts recently warned that pollution could reduce the lifespan of some Londoners
My hope is that the air quality in London will be improved so that people can breathe much cleaner air and live healthier lives in the future. I believe this can be achieved only with the help of all Londoners!

(KCL) - And finally, it’s panto season here in the UK. If you had two air quality wishes, what would they be?
(PC) - I wish for more powers to be available to local authorities to bring about the changes really necessary to improve air quality in the long term.
And finally I wish you a Buon Natale and a Felice Anno Nuovo!

Our thanks to Davide for talking to us this month and bringing some festive cheer to this Christmas edition of Air Mail, and special thanks for obliging us and sending in a photo with a santa hat on.

Santa’s secrets unwrapped?

A crack team of King’s College researchers have been working in collaboration with Lapland University to progress our understanding of time and motion.

Many people, and specifically those in the work place, are prone to loss of productivity through latencies in the motor-cortex transmission system resulting in slow staff speeds and loss of productivity.

Researchers have noted however that for many years, Santa Claus has been able to deliver presents to every child in the world in a single night.

Now, a team of King’s researchers working closely with the School of Present Delivery Logistics at Lapland University may have discovered the secret to Santa’s incredible present-delivery success.

Armed with this new insight, a clinical trial involving spiked mince pies and staff from the Environmental Research Group at King’s has apparently had a breakthrough.
The footage below, leaked from the trial, is believed to show what is possible with just a single magical mince pie. A calibration visit to the UK’s largest monitoring station on Marylebone road which normally takes 6 hours is cut dramatically to just 30 seconds.

Andrew Grieve who is participating in the trial said:
“What-day-is-it? Santa-magic-in-the-pie-and-a-merry-new-year-and-a-happy-I’m-fine-now.”

The trial is ongoing as some side effects have been observed.

Merry Christmas from everyone here at King’s

We would like to wish a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all our web users, funders, colleagues and collaborators.
We look forward to working with you in 2012 which will no doubt be a big year for London and for air quality.

From the web

A selection of stories from around the web this month:

Pollutionwatch December 2011 Dr Gary Fuller’s monthly Pollutionwatch series for the Guardian.

London
Judge declares Client Earth’s action against Defra 'a draw'
Governments representing some of Europe’s industrial areas (and London) join to lobby on 'more flexible' air quality laws
The Putney Society works with Mapping For Change to do some extra NO₂ monitoring in Putney
TfL starts new NO_x converter bus trails
Fed-Ex trials electric delivery van in London

UK
Local residents in Edinburgh worry re-routed buses during tram construction has lead to increased pollution

International
Are 5,000 $100 air pollution sensors as good as a $50,000 monitoring station?
Air quality difficult to gauge in dustier American west
Political tensions ahead of the air quality directive review in 2013
European Environment Agency report calls for a shift in Europe’s transport system
European Environment Agency publishes annual air quality assessment
Lung cancer rate increase in Beijing thought to be linked to pollution
Delhi still struggling to clean it’s air

And Finally:
Is London’s chart topping air pollution affecting Adele voice?
Santa thinks he can escape congestion charge by flying in the air (we suspect not)