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Air quality indicator

The Ministry’s Environmental Reporting Programme has developed a core set of national environmental indicators to measure and report on how well we are looking after our environment. 

Because we cannot measure everything about our environment, indicators provide us with key information which tells us whether the state of the environment is good or bad, and whether it is improving, staying the same or getting worse over time. Indicators can also help us determine potential effects on human health and the environment, and how we are progressing towards national environmental outcomes, standards or goals.

The core set of national environmental indicators includes one indicator for air quality – air quality in managed airsheds - to help us gain a better understanding of the contaminants in our air.

In order to report on the air quality in managed airsheds in New Zealand, a selection of key air quality contaminants (also known as ‘variables’) are monitored and measured:

  • Small particulates (with a diameter less than 10 micrometres, also known as ‘PM10’)
  • Carbon monoxide
  • Nitrogen dioxide
  • Ground-level ozone
  • Sulphur dioxide.

Other supporting information is also regularly reported to provide a more rounded picture of the health of New Zealand’s air:

  • Benzene
  • Very small particulates (with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometres, also known as ‘PM2.5’)
  • Total suspended particulates (also known as TSP)
  • Lead

See Environmental Reporting for more information.

Last updated: 12 March 2009