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Import UK Air Quality Metadata

Source: R/import_ukaq_meta.R
import_ukaq_meta.Rd

import_ukaq_meta() imports metadata for UK air quality monitoring sites. By default this function returns one row per monitoring site, including the site opening and closing dates and other useful meta-data. The by_pollutant option will return one row per monitoring site and pollutant; see import_ukaq_pollutants() for definitions. The "site" column can be used in other functions to import data.

Usage

import_ukaq_meta(
  source = "ukaq",
  year = NA,
  by_pollutant = FALSE,
  ...,
  .class = NULL
)

import_ukaq_pollutants(source = "ukaq", ..., .class = NULL)

Arguments

source

One or more UK Monitoring networks from which to import metadata

default: "ukaq"

The default, "ukaq", will import metadata from the AURN, the four 'devolved' networks, and locally managed English monitoring networks. Any combination of "aurn", "aqe", "saqn", "waqn", "niaqn" and , "lmam" will only import data from those specific monitoring networks.

year

A year, or range of years, with which to filter data.

default: NA

By default all monitoring stations are returned regardless of their open/closed status. year allows users to filter sites open in a specific year, or over a range of years. For example, year = c(2010, 2020) (or year = 2010:2020) will return sites that were open between 2010 and 2020.

by_pollutant

Return site-pollutant combinations?

default: FALSE

If TRUE, the rows of the resulting data.frame will each represent a monitoring site-pollutant pair, with the start, end, and ratification date reflecting each specific pollutant. When FALSE, the default, each row is a unique monitoring site, and the start and end dates represent the opening and closing dates of the site as a whole.

...

Not used.

.class

Signifier for the dataframe class.

default: NULL

ukaq functions, by default, will return tbl_dfs if the tibble package is installed, but will otherwise return data.frames. .class can override this behaviour, and takes either "tbl" or "df", which sets the return class to be tbl_df or data.frame respectively.

Value

a data.frame

Details

The following metadata columns are returned:

  • source : The network with which the site is associated. Note that some monitoring sites are part of multiple networks (e.g., the AURN & SAQN) so the same site may feature twice under different sources.

  • code : The site code, used to import data from specific sites of interest.

  • site : The site name, which is more human-readable than the site code.

  • site_type : A description of the site environment. Read more at https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/networks/site-types.

  • latitude and longitude : The coordinates of the monitoring station, using the World Geodetic System (https://epsg.io/4326).

  • start_date and end_date : The opening and closing dates of the monitoring station. If by_pollutant = TRUE, these dates are instead the first and last dates at which specific pollutants were measured. A missing value, NA, indicates that monitoring is ongoing.

  • ratified_to : The date to which data has been ratified (i.e., 'quality checked'). Data after this date is subject to change.

  • zone, agglomeration and zagglom : The UK is divided into agglomeration zones (large urban areas) and non-agglomeration zones for air quality assessment. The zagglom column coalesces the two, listing the agglomeration if the site is located within one and the zone otherwise.

  • local_authority : The local authority in which the monitoring station is found.

  • lmam_provider and lmam_code : The specific provider of the locally managed dataset (e.g., "londonair").

References

With thanks to Trevor Davies and Ricardo Plc for preparing and hosting the data

Author

Jack Davison, David Carslaw