Land Use Regression Modeling To Estimate Historic (1962-1991) Concentrations of Black Smoke and Sulfur Dioxide for Great Britain

Land-use regression modeling was used to develop maps of annual average black smoke (BS) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations in 1962, 1971, 1981, and 1991 for Great Britain on a 1 km grid for use in epidemiological studies. Models were developed in a GIS using data on land cover, the road network; and population, summarized within circular buffers around air pollution monitoring sites, together with altitude and coordinates of monitoring sites to consider global trend surfaces. Models were developed against the log-normal (LN) concentration, yielding R-2 values of 0.68 (n = 534), 0.68 (n = 767), 0.41 (n = 771), and 0.39 (n = 155) for BS and 0.61 (n = 482), 0.65 (n = 733), 0.38 (n = 756), and 0.24 (n = 153) for SO2, in 1962, 1971, 1981, and 1991, respectively. Model evaluation was undertaken using concentrations at an independent set of monitoring sites. For BS, values of R2 were 0.56 (n = 133), 0.41 (n = 191), 0.38 (n = 193), and 0.34 (n = 37), and for SO2 values of R2 were 0.71 (n = 121), 0.57 (n = 183), 0.26 (n = 139), and 0.31 (n = 38) for 1962, 1971, 1931, and 1991, respectively. Models slightly underpredicted (fractional bias: 0 similar to -0.1) monitored concentrations of both pollutants for all years. This is the first study to produce historic concentration maps at a national level going back to the 1960s.