Reefton Air Quality Monitoring
PM10 is a measure of the amount of small particles in the air (smaller than 10 micrometers). These small particles tend to cause respiration problems at high concentrations. The National Environmental Standard for Air Quality (NESAQ 2004) limit is a daily average of no more than 50 micrograms/m3 of PM10. An exceedance occurs when there has been an average of more than 50 micrograms/m3 of PM10 recorded over a 24 hour period. The NESAQ allows one exceedance per year. Wind strength and direction, as well as daily temperature variations, have a lot to do with the fluctuations in air quality. In September 2016 the air quality site was moved to a new location in Reefton due to the sale of the previous site. In 2019 a new instrument was purchased and installed at the Reefton site (which has now replaced the original ageing machine). The new monitoring instrument is able to collect data for PM10 and PM2.5. There is currently no national standard for monitoring PM2.5 in New Zealand however there are international guidelines for PM2.5 such as those of the World Health Organisation (15 micrograms/m3 daily average). The National Environmental Standard for Air Quality (NESAQ) is currently under review and monitoring of PM2.5 is likely to be included in this legislation in future. PM2.5 data can be viewed on the LAWA website. PM2.5 data can be viewed on the LAWA website: https://www.lawa.org.nz/explore-data/west-coast-region/air-quality/reefton/reefton-aq-at-school-pool
