Newcastle and Lake Macquarie councils are participating in a new program that will utilise digital technologies to build an 'intelligence network' of air quality issues in the Lower Hunter.
The state government funded Urban Intelligence Program - Air Quality will use environmental sensors to gather data and insights to help communities adapt to the changing climate.
"The project enables access to digital information resources, a digital collaboration hub and an open data platform that can help communities better address local air quality and heat issues," a Department of Planning, Industry and Environment spokesman said.
The project, which will receive $1.8million of funding over the next financial year.
It will complement existing air quality monitoring projects such as the Lower Hunter Air Quality Monitoring Network, which as monitors at Newcastle, Beresfield and Wallsend, and the Newcastle Local Air Quality Monitoring Network, which has monitors at Carrington, Mayfield and Stockton.
Stakeholders include the Department of Planning, the Environmental Protection Authority and several local government areas.
"The focus will be on PM2.5 (fine) particle pollution and other pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)," a spokesman said.
The existing NSW standards have not been revised for 25 years.
The Legislative Council's Planning and Environment Committee, which reviewed the Protection of the Environment Operations Amendment (Clean Air) Bill 2021, found the state's coal-fired power stations were "Lagging behind their overseas counterparts in reducing their harmful health impacts due to comparatively relaxed regulation that has failed to drive the upgrading and installation of pollution control technology."
The committee supported calls for stricter thresholds for concentrations of solid particles, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides and mercury.
"The committee considers it is time that NSW's comparatively outdated and relaxed exceedance limits are tightened to reduce harmful impacts to NSW residents' health," it said.
"Recognising the possibility of unintended consequences to reliability of electricity, the committee acknowledges that some transition measures and provisions may be necessary so as to plan for an orderly [transition] across coal-fired power stations in NSW."
