Air quality management

Tender description

The purpose of this prior information notice is to request expressions of interest from the market in participating in a market engagement exercise for undertaking a detailed assessment of ambient air quality for the Belfast City Council area. For clarity, the geographic extent of the Belfast City Council area is available from the Department for Communities’ website via the following weblink: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/communities/dfc-belfast-council-map.PDF This market engagement exercise will help inform the Council of the best procurement strategy for the services i.e. split contract into lots, scope, considerations for specification, T&C's and pricing. The purpose of this project is to generate, through the application of ambient monitoring and atmospheric dispersion modelling, detailed information on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations within the city boundary in order to ascertain whether or not World Health Organisation (WHO) targets and European Community limit values for PM2.5 are being achieved in relevant human health receptor locations. The outworkings of the project will also provide information on emission sources and source apportionment for PM2.5 across the city in order to assist Belfast City Council in the development and prioritisation of abatement and mitigation policies and measures. The abovementioned requirements for the project may be extended to additionally consider on an equivalent basis ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) for the Belfast City Council area. For clarity, ‘PM10' shall mean particulate matter which passes through a size-selective inlet with a 50 % efficiency cut-off at 10 μm aerodynamic diameter whereas ‘PM2.5’ means particulate matter which passes through a size-selective inlet as defined in the reference method for the sampling and measurement of PM2.5, EN 14907, with a 50 % efficiency cut-off at 2.5μm aerodynamic diameter. ‘Oxides of nitrogen' shall mean the sum of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide added as parts per billion and expressed as nitrogen dioxide in micrograms per cubic meter. Belfast City Council’s various ambient air quality review and assessments, that have been completed in accordance with the UK’s local air quality management technical guidance and ratified by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), continue to indicate that all of the UK air quality objectives and EC limit values for the protection of human health, with the exception of nitrogen dioxide are being achieved within the Belfast City Council boundary. The most recent of these reports are available via the DAERA Northern Ireland Air website via the following weblink: https://www.airqualityni.co.uk/laqm/district-council-reports#511 At present, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is not incorporated into local air quality management regulations (LAQM), and consequently there is no statutory requirement upon Belfast City Council to undertake review and assessments for PM2.5 in order to determine compliance with the EC National Exposure Reduction Target, target value and limit value for PM2.5 or with the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline values for PM2.5 as detailed within the WHO, ‘Air quality guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Global update 2005’ publication. Belfast City Council would advise however, that PM2.5 has been monitored at the Belfast Centre Automatic and Urban Network (AURN) since 1.10.2008. PM2.5 monitoring data and summary statistics from this site are available to download from the DAERA Northern Ireland Air website as follows: https://www.airqualityni.co.uk/site/BEL2#latest-data The proposed detailed assessment for the city will therefore serve to provide a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of PM2.5 concentrations across the city. The detailed assessment of air quality is to be carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Local Air Quality Management Technical Guidance document LAQM.TG(16) https://laqm.defra.gov.uk/technical-guidance/. It must specifically include: Additional ambient pollution monitoring; Road Traffic surveys; Detailed dispersion modelling (to include detailed source-apportionment and high resolution pollution mapping of the Belfast City Council Area); It is anticipated that the duration for this project will be 24 months.