Summary: To help identify and understand air quality issues at the national level, this paper presents information on changes in New Zealand’s air quality over time, and the associated pressures and impacts.

The report includes data to 2012. Data for 2013 was not available for all our national indicators and case studies, or could not be collected, validated, and analysed in time to meet our publication schedule.

This report covers one of five environmental domains that the Environmental Reporting Bill proposed the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand report on. The five domains are air, atmosphere and climate, fresh water, land, and the marine environment.