News and updates

EPA ozone monitoring to be adjusted

3 Jul 2014


EPA will optimise its ozone monitoring network to account for seasonal changes from July.

Six ozone monitors from the EPA network will be switched off at the next scheduled visit; they will then be switched on, fully calibrated and running again by October 1.

From 2015 onwards, the six monitors will be turned off from 31 March to 1 October.

Program Leader (Air Quality & Noise) Gavin Fisher said the decision came as part of a review of the overall monitoring and assessment network.

"We've been monitoring ozone for a long time, we only seen elevated occurrences during summer, and not in the cooler autumn and winter months," Mr Fisher said.

"Monitoring results outside the summer period yield very little value to the EPA for assessing exposure to ozone; it's almost as if nothing is lost if we didn't do it.

"We are confident this move will not compromise our core science or any of our commitments, nor will it present risks to human health assessments.

"Furthermore, the resources diverted from ozone monitoring during this period can be redeployed to our new and emerging environmental priorities," he said.

Monitoring will occur throughout the year for trend analysis, detecting changes in the background, detecting extraordinary events, or for photochemical modelling and research.

None of these activities require all 12 stations to be operational outside summer months.

Page last updated on 17 Jul 2015