• Specialty

  Air Quality
  

• SECTOR

  Energy / Power
  Government
  

• TYPE

  Environmental Study
  

• CLIENTELE

  Federal Government
  

• TIMESPAN

  1997

• LOCATION

  Various Locations, US

Foundation for Clean Air Progress

SERVICE:

Ozone Reduction Study

DESCRIPTION:

Tech Environmental prepared a report for the Foundation for Clean Air Progress which ranked major metropolitan areas with respect to their ozone reduction progress. The top twenty metropolitan areas were ranked. Allentown, PA was ranked as the city with the greatest reduction in unhealthy ozone days over the period 1987-1996, while Fort Lauderdale, FL had the least reduction.

Tech analyzed ozone monitoring data from EPA trend monitoring stations in each of the 104 U.S. metropolitan areas for the years 1987-1996 by comparing the average number of ozone exceedance days per year in the first half of the decade with that in the second half. Since ozone levels are highly dependent on meteorological conditions which vary greatly from year to year and from city to city, this type of averaging is needed to compare and rank the long-term trends in different cities.

The percent reduction in bad ozone days was then calculated across the decade for each metropolitan area. Tech Environmental's study demonstrated that top eight cities had reductions of 100% for the decade (i.e., they had zero exceedance days in the second half of the decade but greater than zero days in the first half), and two cities, San Antonio and Phoenix, showed an increase in bad ozone days.

 

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Key Points

• The Foundation for Clean Air Progress sought to study the ozone reduction progress of major metropolitan cities in the US.
• Tech Environmental prepared a report that studied trends in twenty-five cities and ranked them according to ozone reduction progress.