The Future of Air Quality Management

Abstract

This final chapter considers how air quality management may change in the future. Air quality monitoring will likely expand to measure more pollutants in denser networks in more communities, and may refocus on pollutant issues that negatively impact the vulnerable population. Satellite technology will be increasingly applied to meteorology and air pollution monitoring, especially to provide data in remote areas such as Canada’s North. Monitoring equipment may become smaller, be less expensive to build and operate, and be less power demanding. Real-time air quality forecasting will undoubtedly become more accurate as meteorological modeling and air quality models improve and refocus on weather patterns conducive to degraded air quality. Emissions data from industry and transportation may become more widely available in near real time to enable these models to produce more accurate and useful predictions. Research into the impacts of ultrafine particles and pollutant mixtures on health, should pave the way for improved methods of reducing health risk. Increased awareness at both the domestic and international level of the health risks related to air pollution from industry, particularly resource-based industries, will likely lead to increased pressure to reduce industrial emissions. Remarkable reductions in on-road transportation emissions will likely continue through better post-combustion treatments and the inclusion of better pollutant control systems in off-road vehicles. Electric and hydrogen vehicles will eventually increase their share of the market, resulting in lower emissions within urban communities. National air quality management programs will increasingly mandate reductions in air pollutants and their health impacts for the whole country, including Northern regions. Canada’s close binational relationship with the U.S. will continue and expand north. Air pollution management will make more effective use of the many new approaches to communications from new approaches to formulating air quality messages to new ways of linking air quality data to personal devices to enable individual actions in response to real time air quality.