NPPP 2022 SEA Scoping Report: Topic 2 Air

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, SEA scop­ing Baseline inform­a­tion Top­ic 2 – Air

Con­tents

Ques­tions for con­sulta­tion author­it­ies 1 Con­text 2 Air pol­lu­tion in the Park 2 Pro­posed SEA object­ives 5

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Ques­tions for con­sulta­tion authorities

1. Is there any­thing miss­ing from the Top­ic baseline?
2. Are there any errors in what is presented?
3. Are there any new ini­ti­at­ives, research pro­jects, plans, pro­grammes or strategies or oth­er things that will be report­ing / imple­men­ted over the next 12 – 18 months that are rel­ev­ant to the Top­ic, which may need to be included as the SEA progresses?

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Con­text

Air pol­lu­tion res­ults from the intro­duc­tion of a range of sub­stances into the atmo­sphere from a wide vari­ety of sources, includ­ing industry, trans­port and power gen­er­a­tion. Domest­ic activ­it­ies such as driv­ing, heat­ing and cook­ing also con­trib­ute, as do nat­ur­al sources like sea salt, wild­fires, vol­can­ic activ­ity, soil erosion and farming.

Poor air qual­ity can have both short term and long term effects on human health. In gen­er­al, healthy people may not suf­fer from any ser­i­ous ill effects; how­ever people with pre-exist­ing health con­di­tions such as heart dis­ease, lung con­di­tions and asthma may be adversely affected by day to day changes in air pol­lu­tion levels. The Roy­al Col­lege of Phys­i­cians estim­ated that in 2015, par­tic­u­late mat­ter in the air (PM10 and PM2.5) could have caused the deaths of 2,500 — 3,500 people in Scot­land (https://​www​.rcplon​don​.ac​.uk/​p​r​o​j​e​c​t​s​/​o​u​t​p​u​t​s​/​e​v​e​r​y​-​b​r​e​a​t​h​-​w​e​-​t​a​k​e​-​l​i​f​e​l​o​n​g​-​i​m​p​a​c​t​-air- pollution).

Air pol­lu­tion can also dam­age the wider envir­on­ment, caus­ing the acid­i­fic­a­tion of soils and water or the depos­ition of nutri­ents, neg­at­ively affect­ing plant and anim­al life. Air pol­lu­tion can also dam­age the fab­ric of build­ings and his­tor­ic monuments.

Air pol­lu­tion in the Park

The air qual­ity object­ives for Scot­land are set out in the Air Qual­ity (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2000 (as amended). The main pol­lut­ants of con­cern are:

• nitro­gen oxides (NOx)
• par­tic­u­late mat­ter (PM10 and PM2.5)
• sul­phur diox­ide (SO2)
• non-meth­ane volat­ile organ­ic com­pounds (NMVOCs)
• ground-level ozone (O3) and
• ammo­nia (NH3)

The air qual­ity of Scot­land is gen­er­ally bet­ter now than it has been at any time since before the indus­tri­al revolu­tion, with increas­ingly strict con­trol over indus­tri­al emis­sions, tight­er fuel and emis­sion stand­ards for road vehicles and the con­trol of smoke from domest­ic premises yield­ing pos­it­ive res­ults. An inde­pend­ent review of air qual­ity in Scot­land pub­lished in 2019 found that between 1990 and 2016 sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tions were seen in the emis­sions of PM10(-64%), PM2.5 (-67%) nitro­gen oxides (-72%) and sul­phur diox­ide (-94%) (https://www.gov.scot/publications/cleaner-air-scotland-strategy-independent-review/).

Human expos­ure to air pol­lu­tion is now largely asso­ci­ated with trans­port emis­sions. The effects of this pol­lu­tion occur in mainly in built areas.

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Where air qual­ity object­ives are not being met, Loc­al Author­it­ies have a duty under sec­tion 83(10 of the Envir­on­ment Act 1995 to des­ig­nate Air Qual­ity Man­age­ment Areas (AQMAs) to improve air qual­ity. All air qual­ity object­ives are cur­rently being met with­in the Park and there­fore no AQMAs exist with­in its bound­ary (the nearest AQMAs are loc­ated in Aber­deen and Inverness).

Nev­er­the­less, dualling of the A9 and how this could change traffic levels and vis­it­or num­bers in the Park means that air qual­ity could be a future con­cern. In par­tic­u­lar, the poten­tial for increas­ing pol­lut­ants asso­ci­ated with traffic emis­sions such as PM10 and nitro­gen diox­ide (NO₂) needs to be giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion. Spa­tial data on the emis­sion of PM10 and NO2 is avail­able from the UK Nation­al Atmo­spher­ic Emis­sions Invent­ory for 2016. (There is insuf­fi­cient mon­it­or­ing data to under­take map­ping for PM2.5.) The highest emis­sions are loc­ated along the A9 and with­in the main set­tle­ments of Aviemore, Grant­own-on-Spey and Bal­later, where traffic volumes are greatest (fig­ures I and 2).

Fig­ure 2 — emis­sions of NOx in tonnes in the Park in 2016

Private motor­ised vehicle use is the main mode of trans­port in the Park for employ­ment pur­poses, with pub­lic trans­port use being par­tic­u­larly low (Top­ic 8, Pop­u­la­tion and human health). Due to pop­u­la­tion growth and increas­ing vis­it­or num­bers, is likely that travel by private vehicle will increase in the Park unless there is a mod­al shift to altern­at­ive means of travel.

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Pro­posed SEA objectives

SEA main object­ive	Sub-object­ive
2a: To main­tain or improve air qual­ity and reduce emis­sions of key pollutants	Will there be an effect on the levels of UK Nation­al Air Qual­ity pol­lut­ants (eg NO2, PM10, PM2.5, SO2)? Will there be an effect on the levels of oth­er types of air pol­lu­tion (eg particulates)?