Air Quality Monitoring

Air Quality Index (AQI)

What is the Air Quality Index?

The Air Quality Index is an index for reporting daily air quality. It tells you how clean or polluted your air is, and what associated health effects might be a concern for you. The AQI focuses on health effects you may experience within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. It takes all the monitored pollutants and relates them to a single scale value to communicate air quality.   View our AQI Guide for Ozone and Particle Pollution below.

How does the AQI work?

Think of the AQI as a scale that runs from 0 to 500. The higher the AQI value the greater the level of air pollution, and the greater the health concern. For example, an AQI value of 50 represents good air quality with little potential to affect public health, while an AQI value over 300 represents hazardous air quality. Florida rarely has AQI’s greater than 100 and has never officially had a value greater than 200. An AQI value of 100 generally corresponds to the national air quality standard for the pollutant, which is the level EPA has set to protect public health. AQI values below 100 are generally thought of as satisfactory. AQI values near or just above 100 indicate air quality is considered to be unhealthy for certain sensitive groups of people. Higher AQI values indicate the air quality is unhealthy for everyone.

For more information on the AQI visit the EPA website.

What is the Federal Standard?

The federal Clean Air Act directs EPA to establish a health-based standard for an acceptable concentration level of several pollutants, including ozone and particle pollution in the atmosphere. This site reports the continuous data concentrations for these two pollutants.

The new federal standard for ozone has been established at a level equivalent to 75 parts per billion averaged over any 8-hour period. An area will be considered in violation (not meeting the standard) if the average of the annual fourth highest maximum daily 8-hour average ozone concentration at any ozone monitor for a three year period exceeds 75 parts per billion.

The particulate pollution posted on this page is fine particle concentrations. The standard for fine particles or PM2.5, has two parts, one is annual and one is daily. The level of the annual standard is 15.0 µg/m³ annual arithmetic mean and 35 µg/m³ for a 24-hour average. The annual standard is violated if the three-year average is above 15.0 µg/m³. The 24 hour standard is violated if the three-year average of the annual 98th percentile of daily averages at a site is above 35 µg/m³.Air Quality Guide for Ozone and Particle Pollution

Air Quality Guide for Ozone and Particle Pollution

Air Quality Category	Air Quality Index (AQI) AQI=100 corresponds to standard	Ozone Concentration (parts per million) 8-hour average unless noted	Ozone Concentration (parts per billion) 8-hour average unless noted	Particle Pollution Concentration (µg/m3) 24-hour daily average EPA's air quality
Good	0 to 50	0.0 to 0.059	0 to 59	0.0 to 15.4
	What does it mean?   No health impacts are expected when air quality is in this range.
Moderate	51 to 100	0.060 to 0.075	60 to 75	15.5 to 40.4
	What does it mean?   Ozone: Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion outdoors. Particle Pollution: Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion.
Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	101 to 150	0.076 to 0.095	76 to 95	40.5 to 65.4
	What does it mean?   Ozone: Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease should limit prolonged outdoor exertion. Particle Pollution: People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion.
Unhealthy	151 to 200	0.096 to 0.115	96 to 115	65.5 to 150.4
	What does it mean?   Ozone: Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion: everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion. Particle Pollution: People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion.
Very Unhealthy	201 to 300	0.116 to 0.374	116 to 374	150.5 to 250.4
	What does it mean?   Ozone: Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion: everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion. Particle Pollution: People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid all physical activity outdoors. Everyone else should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion.