Air Pollution Data

Question

I've got a student who's looking for 2006 air pollution data (PM10, carbon monoxide, etc.) at the health region level. Something tells me that kind of information probably isn't collected by health region. I've found a few sites that have region data available, the Ontario Air Quality Index and CASA Data (Alberta) for example, but nothing national.

Does anyone know of other possible sources?

Answer

Our contacts in our Environment Accounts and Statistics Division have provided the following suggestions in response to your question:

"Health Canada has done a lot of work linking ambient air quality data to different geographies. We have also been involved in the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) inititative for the national ambient air qualtiy indicators, but these are not specifically linked to health regions.

The approach I suggest is to use the National Air Pollution Surveillance (NAPS) data (available for download from the Environment Canada website). This can be combined via the Lat-Long coordinates for the sites with the health region geography in a geographical information systems (GIS) application. This would work for ambient air quality analysis.

If it is emissions that are the focus, then the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) is the main source of information. Since 2002, emissions of criteria air contaminants have been included in the NPRI. The inventory has emissions by facility, and the facilities are geo coded. This too could be coded to health regions with the appropriate GIS application. "