Monitoring of PM₁₀ in New Zealand

• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Monitoring Methods for Particles in New Zealand
• 3 Auckland Region
• 4 Waikato Region
• 5 Bay of Plenty Region
• 6 Taranaki and Northland Regions
• 7 Gisborne and Hawkes Bay Regions
• 8 Wellington Region
• 9 Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough Districts
• 10 Canterbury Region
• 11 West Coast and Southland Regions
• 12 Otago Region
• 13 Trends in PM₁₀ Concentrations in New Zealand
• References
• About the Ministry

6 Taranaki and Northland Regions

Air quality monitoring for PM₁₀ in the Taranaki and Northland regions is limited to monitoring of PM₁₀ in Whangarei and Kaitaia and some screening monitoring in New Plymouth. The Kaitaia monitoring site was located near State Highway One and was limited to three samples only. Because of the low sampling frequency, results are not reported. Further monitoring in Kaitaia was also carried out during 2002. The New Plymouth monitoring was carried out using the GRIMM optical sampling method. No results for the latter site have been reported because of the limited period of monitoring and uncertainties associated with the monitoring method.

6.1 Monitoring sites

Details of the ambient air quality PM₁₀ monitoring sites within the Northland and Taranaki regions until December 2001 are shown in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1: Ambient air quality monitoring sites for PM₁₀ in Taranaki and Northland

Area	Location	Duration	Site classification	Monitoring method
New Plymouth	New Plymouth Central	30 May 2000 - 1 May 2000	Residential neighbourhood	GRIMM (optical)
New Plymouth	New Plymouth Central	20 February 2000 - 20 March 2000	Residential neighbourhood	GRIMM (optical)
New Plymouth	New Plymouth Central	13 November 2000 - 30 December 2000	Residential neighbourhood	GRIMM (optical)
Whangarei	Robert St Boat Garage	October 2000 - August 2001	Residential neighbourhood	High volume
Kaitaia	State Highway One	November-December 2001 - three samples only	Traffic peak	High volume

6.2 PM₁₀ concentrations

Air quality monitoring in Whangarei (Northland) for 2000 and 2001 shows one exceedence of the 24-hour average ambient air quality guideline value for PM₁₀ on the 14 February 2001 (Figure 6.1 and Table 6.2). This exceedence is unlike those at most other locations in New Zealand where high PM₁₀ concentrations typically occur during the winter months. Other elevated concentrations also occur during the summer months and may be attributed to a local industrial source of PM₁₀. Elevated PM₁₀ concentrations during the winter months are also apparent with a near guideline value exceedence of 49 µgm^-3 on 9 May 2001.

Table 6.2: Summary of PM₁₀ concentrations at ambient monitoring site in Whangarei, Northland

Area	Maximum	99.5 percentile	Annual average	% of days monitored	Days > 50 µgm-3	% of winter days guideline was exceeded
Whangarei 2001	73	69	n/a	10%	1 measured	0%

Note: Guideline value exceedences are highlighted in bold.

previous | next