National Park Service visibility monitoring and data analysis program: Seasonal data summary report: Winter 1990

Air Resource Specialists, Inc.

From the introduction: "The National Park Service (NPS), as a function of its founding legislation (Organic Act of 1916) and the Clean Air Act (P.L. 95-95), has "an affirmative responsibility" to protect air quality-related values in the National Park System. Congress emphasized visibility protection in the National Parks as a major goal of the Clean Air Act. The NPS manages 48 areas designated as Class I by the Prevention of Significant Deterioration regulations of the Clean Air Act. To fulfill their responsibility to protect the air quality-related values of visibility in these Class I areas, the NPS initiated a comprehensive visibility monitoring program in 1978. The Visibility Monitoring and Data Analysis Program is designed to collect data and develop procedures that will further the understanding of the visual resource in support of effective management decisions. The NPS program encompasses: - Establishing baseline conditions and long-term trends in visual air quality in the National Parks, and monitoring progress toward the national visibility goals. - Obtaining high quality visibility data that can be used in planning, permit review, and policy decision processes by using instrumentation capable of measuring quantities that can be directly related to those perceived by the human eye, namely contrast and coloration. - Establishing a database that will assist in the scientific investigation of visibility and validation of computer models designed to predict visibility impairment. - Determining the existing sources of visibility impairment, detecting new problems and developments early, and determining the sensitivity of individual vistas and parks to varying concentrations of pollutants."