Monitoring
Early morning pollution over Blenheim
Currently PM10 is the only criteria air contaminant of concern in Marlborough. The graphs below show this year to date and previous years PM10 concentrations in Marlborough. Redwoodtown is monitored daily with hourly updates. Springlands and Picton are monitored one in three days. Picton is currently unavailable until a new location is found.
Winter 2011
Hourly concentrations in Redwoodtown:
Daily concentrations from 1 May 2011:
Springlands and Picton will be updated monthly.
Winter 2010
Daily concentrations for 2010:
Winter 2009
Daily concentrations for 2009:
Winter 2008
Daily concentrations for 2008:
Monitoring in Marlborough
Monitoring of PM10 in Marlborough first began in 2000 in Blenheim. Monitoring has since been carried out in Picton and Renwick. Currently monitoring is carried out at two sites in Blenheim and one site in Picton.
The National Environmental Standard (NES) for PM10 is 50μg/m3 as a 24 hour average concentration. The standards allow for only one exceedance per year. Blenheim typically exceeds the NES for PM10 3-5 times per year. The greatest number of exceedances recorded was 14. The highest concentration recorded was 85μg/m3 but typically the highest concentrations are between 55–65μg/m3. No exceedance has been recorded for Renwick and only one exceedance has been recorded for Picton.
In Redwoodtown (Blenheim) PM10 is monitored every hour using a MetOne Beta Attenuation Monitor. A 24 hour average is then calculated from this data.
On high pollution days in winter, where exceedance of the NES is observed, there is typically a morning and evening peak in PM10 concentrations.
Monitoring is carried out every one in three days at Springlands (Blenheim) and in Picton using Hi-vol monitors. Filter paper is used to collect PM10 over a 24 hour period. These filter papers are then sent to the laboratory on a monthly basis for analysis.
Further Information
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Air Quality Monitoring Reports are produced each year.
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Hydrotel - Council's Hydrology Information system has in-depth information on Air Quality monitoring in Marlborough.