Fort Air Partnership (FAP), the organization that monitors the air local residents breathe, released 2022 Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) results today. The Government of Alberta calculates the AQHI using data collected at seven of FAP’s air monitoring stations.
2022 air monitoring results
The number of hours of air monitoring in 2022 was 55,611 hours. Of these hours, 94.9% were low-risk AQHI, and 4.8% were moderate-risk AQHI.
Just over 0.2% of the hours monitored were high or very high-risk AQHI. Wildfire smoke most frequently contributed to high-risk and very high-risk Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) ratings measured at Fort Air Partnership’s monitoring stations in 2022. Meteorological conditions leading to temperature inversions were the second largest contributor to high or very high-risk AQHI.
Low-risk AQHI relatively static over the past five years
As illustrated in the chart below, low-risk AQHI ratings in the FAP Airshed remain relatively static since 2019. The uptick in high and very-high-risk AQHI in 2021 was mainly due to wildfire smoke.
Air quality monitoring statistics
For all of the details and charts on 2022 air monitoring data, please see the 2022 air quality monitoring report. This report includes details on exceedances since 2018.