Air pollution is a significant threat to the natural environment. There are numerous air pollutants that have different impacts in different conditions. We collect atmospheric ammonia and precipitation chemistry readings to allow us to understand nitrogen deposition and how that influences plant and soil communities. Nitrogen influences soil fertility and a more fertile soil means that more competitive plant species thrive and out-compete rarer species.
The LTMN project works in partnership with the UK Eutrophying and Acidifying Pollutants (UKEAP) Network, which brings together a number of atmospheric pollution monitoring networks run by Defra and the Environment Agency. The methodology for this protocol can be found on the UKEAP website. Here is the UKEAP PRECIPNET protocol to measure precipitation chemistry. To access air quality data for some of our sites please see the UKEAP data selector website.
On sites where we are not collecting air quality data we are investigating the accuracy and use of representative or modelled data.
This page is part of Natural England’s Long Term Monitoring Network. For information on our individual LTMN sites please see the Core sites data pages.