Creation of an air pollution scenario impact tool

CERC has developed a digital air pollution impact tool to model the impacts of changes to air pollution sources and the adoption of mitigation measures, on levels of air pollution exposure. The tool is potentially scalable to all London local authorities, and could be a `ground-breaking` example for city authorities around the world, as are CERC`s Breathe London and airTEXT services.

This is a joint commission by Impact on Urban Health (IoUH) and Southwark and Lambeth Councils, who have a shared ambition to reduce the harmful impact air pollution has on people`s health, particularly those most at risk.

CERC selected sensitive locations in Lambeth and Southwark according to the risk from air pollution exposure and focusing on areas of deprivation, according to Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).

We used ADMS-Urban to calculate concentrations of NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 at these locations and calculated the contribution of different source groups at each location.

Our findings allowed us to identify outcomes and measures that affect exposure to air pollution at each location, such as changes in traffic movements, emissions performance of vehicles, or the use of different fuels for heating and cooking. We modelled the impact of each measure on exposure to the pollutants at each sensitive receptor site.

Our web-based interactive tool encapsulates the model results and allows the user to view the impact of different combinations of mitigation measures.

We assessed the health impact of the mitigation measures using the modelled concentrations and population, age and health data. Our findings and the methodology used for the work can be found in our report. In two years` time, CERC will review the model, checking usability and updating inputs where new data has become available.