Regional Indicator 11: Air Quality

	Why It's Important Air quality has direct effects on human health. Fine particulates may affect breathing, aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular disease, alter the body's defense systems and damage lung tissue. Both premature mortality and emergency hospital visits may increase during times of high concentrations of fine particulates.

Regional Indicator Eleven is measured by the amount of fine particulate matter in the air. Fine particulates include dust, dirt, liquid droplets and smoke. Factories, cars, power plants, construction activity, and numerous other sources emit fine particulates. Lower levels earn better ranks.

Powell River had the lowest annual average concentration of particulates (PM2.5) over the 2001 through 2006 period at 3.4 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³). Nanaimo was the next lowest at 4.3 µg/m³.

Vancouver and Victoria came in at 5.6 µg/m³ and µg/m³, respectively. Prince George and Kelowna had the highest annual average concentration of particulate matter at 9.3 µg/m³ and 6.0 µg/m³, respectively.

The presentation of this indicator differs from previous years in that no reference is made to the previous standard based on PM10 data. Although only four locations are presented in the figure the full set of data is available on our website.