Air Data

Burning wood and coal for home heating, road motor vehicle use, industrial activities, and household outdoor burning are the key human-made sources of air pollutants in New Zealand. These pollutants have a range of health effects.
Measuring the contribution of each source helps us understand their pressures on our air quality. It also provides context for changes in emissions from individual sources. For example, from 2006 to 2013, PM10 emissions from road motor vehicles decreased 25 percent. However, this source contributed only 9 percent of the total national PM10 emissions from the four key sources. Therefore, this decrease in PM10 emissions from road motor vehicles likely had only a minor effect on total PM10 emissions.

Daily winter emissions and annual average emissions are presented as there is strong seasonality in emissions. Daily winter contributions were also assessed because this is the timeframe used by WHO and in national standards and winter months is when concentrations in excess of the standards most frequently occur.

This dataset relates to the "Relative contribution of key human-made emission sources" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Further information can be found in Environet and Golders Associates (2015). Home heating emission inventory and other sources evaluation. Wellington: Ministry for the Environment. Available at data.mfe.govt.nz/x/a5FAw6 on the Ministry for the Environment dataservice.

An emissions inventory provides information on the amount of key air pollutants that are released into the atmosphere for a given location over a given time period. This enables us to identify sources of pollutants. By understanding the amounts that different sources contribute, air quality can be better managed and modelled.
We evaluated emissions for five key pollutants for 2015, the most-recent year that data were readily available: particulate matter (PM) less than 10 micrometres in diameter (PM10), PM less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and sulphur dioxide (SO2), because they are the most important pollutants in New Zealand.
The grouped sources include: energy-related activities, construction dust, road dust, industrial process emissions (non-combustion), agriculture (emissions from animal housing), vegetation fires (burning agricultural residue and biomass burning), and incinerating of hazardous waste.
Only human-generated emissions were included in this emission inventory. No updated data for residential wood burning were available and was assumed to be the same as the 2013 national inventory.

Benzene is a volatile organic compound. Motor vehicle use and home heating are the main sources of airborne benzene emissions. Natural sources include volcanoes and forest fires. Benzene can affect the nervous system and is associated with some forms of cancer.

Benzene is emitted by human-made (motor vehicles, burning wood or coal for home heating, and some industrial activities) and natural (volcanoes and forest fires) sources.

Column headings:
- Con_mcg_m3 = Concentration in micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m3)

This dataset relates to the "Benzene concentrations" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.

Benzene is a volatile organic compound (VOC) that is common in the air. Motor vehicles are benzene’s primary emission source (Guerreiro, Foltescu, & de Leeuw, 2014; Weisel, 2010) although burning wood or coal for home heating, volcanoes, and forest fires also emit benzene.
Benzene is a human carcinogen (World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe Copenhagen, 2000) that has been shown to cause leukaemia (Smith, 2010), and is associated with developmental, immune, neurological, reproductive, and respiratory problems (Bahadar, Mostafalou, & Abdollahi, 2014). Acute exposure can affect the liver and respiration (Bahadar et al, 2014).
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

Black carbon is a particle, often in the PM2.5 or ultra-fine size range, which is emitted from combustion sources and is commonly known as soot. In New Zealand most black carbon is emitted from vehicles (especially diesel vehicles), burning wood and coal for home heating, and outdoor burning. Both long and short-term exposure to black carbon is linked to serious health effects, such as respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and premature death (World Health Organization (WHO), 2013).
Black carbon warms the climate globally and regionally because it is efficient at absorbing energy from sunlight. Black carbon also increases ice and snow melt when deposited on these surfaces, darkening them and lowering albedo (proportion of light that is reflected) so they absorb more solar energy (Ramanathan & Carmichael, 2008).
More information on this dataset and how it relates to our environmental reporting indicators and topics can be found in the attached data quality pdf.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a gas formed by incomplete combustion of fuels, in particular from road motor vehicles and burning wood and coal for home heating. It also occurs naturally, for example, from wild fires. CO can affect human health by interfering with the blood’s ability to carry oxygen and by aggravating heart conditions.

Road motor vehicles are the main source of carbon monoxide, followed closely by wood or coal burning for home heating. These two sources contribute 50 and 43 percent respectively of the combined carbon monoxide emissions produced by home heating, on-road vehicles and industry over a year.

Column units:
- Disp_graph column: 1= displayed on graph; 0 = not displayed on graph
- Variable column: mg_m3 = milligrams per cubic metre (mg/m3)

This dataset relates to the "Carbon monoxide concentrations" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.