Air Quality in Australia

How air quality works in Australia: the index it uses, the pollutants that dominate, the seasonal pattern, the cities to watch, and the agencies that monitor it. Australia reports on the Australian Air Quality Index.

The big picture

Australia enjoys very good baseline air quality. It reports on an AQI built as a percentage of the national standard — a pollutant at its standard scores 100 — administered state by state, so category labels vary across jurisdictions.

Dominant pollutants and where they come from

The defining hazard is bushfire smoke (PM2.5), which can be extreme during severe fire seasons. Other contributors: hazard-reduction (planned) burns, dust storms (PM10) off the arid interior, summer ozone in the larger cities, and winter wood-heater smoke in some towns.

The seasonal pattern

Bushfire risk peaks in the hot, dry months — spring and summer in the south-east — when smoke can settle over Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra for weeks, as it did in the 2019–20 "Black Summer." Autumn brings planned-burn smoke; dust events can occur whenever strong winds cross dry interior soils. See Wildfire Smoke.

Who monitors it

Each state and territory environment agency runs its own monitoring network and publishes the AQI — for example NSW's Air Quality service and EPA Victoria's AirWatch — under national Air NEPM standards.

Cities in Australia

Primary sources: Australian Government — Ambient Air Quality standards · NSW — Air Quality