Ozone

Importance / Issues

Ozone pollution is an important stressor of terrestrial vegetation with clear ecological relevance.  Atmospheric ozone concentration data is available from the CASTNET network and other sources, and need only be acquired and summarized by the NETN.  Ozone stress on specific indicator species should be monitored within some NETN parks to provide the necessary information to better ascertain the ecological effects of ozone.  Ozone monitoring is presently ongoing at Acadia and Saratoga.  Acadia is a Class 1 air quality park and therefore has a GPRA goal to maintain or improve park air quality. Other parks are within 35 miles of an ozone monitoring station, and therefore it is not necessary to install any new ozone monitoring stations. 

Protocol Development & Status

The NETN will work with Acadia to ensure that necessary levels of ozone monitoring within the park are maintained and to provide park managers with information to meet the air quality GPRA goal.  The NETN will also work with the Air Resources Division to summarize existing ozone monitoring data and make these data available to the parks. For more information on ozone monitoring please see the protocols that the ARD has developed: Ozone Monitoring and Foliar Ozone Injury.

Potential Measures

Atmospheric Ozone concentration (synthesize existing data), foliar injury to indicator species.

Preliminary Monitoring Objective

The NPS monitoring objectives are:

• Identify air pollutants which may injure or damage park natural resources, measure these pollutants, and correlate observed effects on resources to ambient levels of pollutants.
• Establish baseline visibility conditions, deposition, and air pollutant concentrations in national parks.
• Identify and assess trends in air quality.
• Determine compliance with National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
• Provide data for the development and revision of national and regional air pollution control policies that are protective of park resources.
• Provide data for atmospheric model development and evaluation.
• Determine the relative importance of various atmospheric constituents to visibility impairment.
• Determine the sensitivity of individual areas or views to variations in visual air quality.

Contact Information

NPS lead: Brian R. Mitchell

Email: Brian R. Mitchell

802-457-3368 ext. 37

References

None Presently Available