US EPA

43268 

Journal Article 

Attainment and effects issues regarding alternative secondary ozone air quality standards 

Lee, EH; Hogsett, WE; Tingey, DT 

1994 

Yes 

Journal of Environmental Quality
ISSN: 0047-2425
EISSN: 1537-2537 

23 

6 

1129-1140 

English 

10.2134/jeq1994.00472425002300060002x 

WOS:A1994PR00300001 

http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/6/1129
Exit
 

The present secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for O3, established in 1979, is based on limited information from a few field studies on vegetation and may not be protective of crop damage due to O3, alone or in combination with other pollutants. Considerable information from field studies conducted in the past decade indicate that there is poor functional correspondence between agricultural production and the air quality index of the current secondary NAAQS for O3. Because the current O3 NAAQS is based on data for extreme values of air quality, the index (or form) of the NAAQS ignores key features of hourly exposure data that are desirable and important to minimizing the risk of crop damage. Previous analyses of existing vegetation effects data indicate that exposure indices that cumulated the hourly O3 concentrations over the season, as well as preferentially weighted the higher concentrations appear to have major advantages over the mean and peak indices on the basis of statistical fits to the data. The peak-weighted, cumulative indicators whose form and level are determined from crop studies were found useful in achieving a target production level that is higher than that of the current O3 NAAQS indicator with fewer violations. These alternative air quality indicators compare favorably with the current O3 NAAQS in terms of protection against adverse welfare effects and air quality properties to better identify areas having adequate air quality.