The advisory note has been published this week and is intended to guide practitioners in making informed judgements on the ecological effects of pollution concentrations and deposition rates.
Baker Consultants’ Managing Director Andrew Baker is a CIEEM Fellow and was a contributing author to this most recent publication on the subject of air quality: “CIEEM (2021) Advice on Ecological Assessment of Air Quality Impacts. Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. Winchester, UK.”
Ecologists and Air Quality Specialists are guided through issues to be considered when making assessments, from identifying baseline ecological features and current levels of pollution at sites, through to assessing the relative importance of confounding factors in relation to the habitat or species in question.
The advice note is intended to further plug the gap in detailed guidance on the issue to date. The document can be downloaded directly from the CIEEM website at the following location: https://cieem.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Air-Quality-advice-note.pdf
It is intended to be a companion piece to the IAQM document “Guide to the Assessment of Air Quality Impacts on Designated Nature Conservation Sites (May 2020)” that can be found here: https://iaqm.co.uk/text/guidance/air-quality-impacts-on-nature-sites-2019.pdf
The ecological interpretation of air quality modelling continues to evolve and definitive interpretations ultimately rest with the Courts, and so it is likely this advice will evolve in line with any future Court decisions. Andrew is often called to give evidence as an air quality expert witness in public inquiry cases. For further reading on the essential role multi-disciplinary teams play in this process, read Andrew’s article in the Summer 2020 edition of the Expert Witness Journal here: https://www.expertwitness.co.uk/articles/journal/issue-32-of-the-expert-witness-journal-is-now-online
Andrew’s other key areas of expertise are nature conservation law, Habitats Regulations Assessment and bioacoustics. For more information or advice get in touch via contact form on the website, you can call us on +44 (0)1629 593958 or email us on info@bakerconsultants.co.uk.