Air quality

Annual average exposure to outdoor air pollution of PM2.5 (particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less)

Clean air is critical to a healthy population. There is a strong body of evidence that long term exposure to PM2.5, even at low concentrations, can cause a range of adverse health effects including cardiovascular and respiratory disease, reduced lung function, cancer, and reduced life expectancy.

There are geographical limitations on measuring air quality so it is challenging to draw broad conclusions. 

In 2023, 30 of the 37 monitoring stations for which data was available for both 2017-18 and 2022-23 improved. 

Air quality was negatively impacted by the Black Summer bushfires which caused a spike in PM2.5 particles in 2019-20.

The data is sourced from jurisdictional monitoring undertaken in compliance with the National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure. The NEPM includes technical, performance and location requirements that must be met by monitoring stations. Data is made public annually in National Environment Protection Council annual reports, however only data up until the 2018-19 period is publicly available at present. The subsequent data sets are unpublished and have been sourced directly; these are expected to be publicly available in the near future.