Air Quality Consultants Ltd is working alongside ECUS Ltd on a contract awarded by Wealden District Council. The contract, worth over £0.5m, is to carry out a long-term study of nitrogen deposition at Ashdown Forest and the effect this is having on the special ecology of the area.
Large parts of Ashdown Forest have been declared a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for its dry and wet heath habitats.
The study has evolved out of Wealden District Council’s Core Strategy examination, where the Planning Inspector required Wealden District Council to investigate impacts of nitrogen deposition on Ashdown Forest SAC arising from additional traffic associated with an increase in development above that identified in the Core Strategy. The SAC has been declared under the European Union Habitats Directive as Ashdown Forest represents one of the largest single blocks of lowland heath in south-east England, with both dry heaths and wet heath habitats.
Air Quality Consultants Ltd is responsible for the monitoring and modelling of air quality, while ECUS Ltd will be managing the study and undertaking ecological surveys including vegetation monitoring and habitat mapping. The monitoring will cover more than 100 sites and measure a suite of air pollutants. It is expected that the monitoring will continue for a number of years. The results will be used to develop a model of how much nitrogen is being deposited to different areas of the SAC. These results will then be linked to the findings of the ecological surveys that are examining the condition of the ecosystem, to establish the evidence of harm due to nitrogen deposition.
More information can be obtained from the Wealden Council website.
View all news