Air Quality

Sunrise at the wet deposition monitoring site in King Salmon, Alaska.

NPS/Kelsey Griffin

Air quality assessments for national parklands are overseen by the National Park Service Air Resources Division (ARD). The ARD focuses their assessments on several air quality indicators, including visibility, particulate matter, ozone, and atmospheric deposition.

Atmospheric deposition is the process whereby airborne pollutants, such as nitrate and sulfate, reach the earth. Deposition consists of both wet and dry components. Wet deposition occurs when pollutants are transferred to the ground, usually by rain and snow but also by fog and mist. Wet deposition has been monitored in North America since 1978 by the National Atmospheric Deposition Program’s National Trends Network (NTN). The NTN currently includes 261 active monitoring sites, one of which is operated by the Southwest Alaska Network and Katmai National Park and Preserve. This site (known as AK97) is located in King Salmon, Alaska, and is one of only five active NTN sites in the state. It is also the furthest west of all 261 sites.

The overarching goal of participating in the NTN is to produce reliable wet deposition data with a nationwide context, enabling inter- and intra-site comparisons over time. The following specific objectives will be addressed by this monitoring:

• Determine the status and trends in the concentrations of select chemical constituents in precipitation at the study site in King Salmon.

• Determine the status and trends in the loadings of select chemical constituents deposited on the ground (annually or seasonally) via precipitation at the study site in King Salmon.

We monitor air quality via wet deposition in Katmai National Park and Preserve.

Contact: Krista Bartz

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