UK Biodiversity Indicator B5a, Air pollution

• Published by: Joint Nature Conservation Committee
• Last updated: 17 May 2018
• Topic: Environment
• Licence: Open Government Licence ; View licence information

Summary

This spreadsheet is the underlying data for the biodiversity indicator B5a, Air pollution.

The air pollutants - sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ammonia - can contribute to acidification, and nitrogen oxides and ammonia can contribute to terrestrial eutrophication. Both problems can adversely affect semi-natural ecosystems. Exceeding the critical load for acid deposition may have direct effects, for example by altering the soil pH and therefore the range of associated species, or indirect effects, for example by increasing dissolved aluminium concentrations in soil and water. Excess nitrogen as a nutrient can lead to leakage of nitrogen from soil systems, causing eutrophication of inland waters, or affect species composition, for example by triggering accelerated growth of some species at the expense of others.

Critical loads are thresholds above which significant harmful effects occur on sensitive UK habitats. Approximately 78,000km2 of terrestrial habitat is sensitive to acid deposition. About 73,000km2 is sensitive to eutrophication; much of this is sensitive to both.

This is one of a suite of 24 UK biodiversity indicators published by JNCC on behalf of Defra; the latest publication date was 19 January 2016 - for indicator B5a the latest data are for 2012. The supporting technical document details the methodology used to create the indicator.

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• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2015-2017
• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2014-2016
• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2016-2018
• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2017-2019

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Data links

Link to the data	Format	File added	Data preview
page-4245	N/A	17 May 2018	Not available

Additional information

View additional metadata

• Added to data.gov.uk: 2018-05-17
• Access contraints: No limitations
• Harvest GUID: 280883cb-fa50-41ec-96db-6a1fb661e246
• Extent: Latitude: 61.0° to 49.77°
• Extent: Longitude: -8.65° to 2.0°
• Dataset reference date: 2016-01-19 (publication)
• Responsible party: Digital and Data Solutions, JNCC (distributor)
• ISO 19139 resource type: dataset
• Metadata language: eng
• Source Metadata: XML
• Source Metadata: HTML

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Licence information

Released under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Attribution statement "Contains public sector information from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, licenced under the Open Government Licence v3.0"