air quality
The air survey begins!
How does air quality vary across the country? What effect is air pollution having on our environment?
By taking part in the OPAL air survey, you’ll help our scientists answer these and many other important questions.
Pollution can come from many sources, including cars, factories and agriculture. Even if we can’t see all air pollutants directly, we can often observe their effects on the environment.
Lichens on trees and tar spot on sycamore leaves are both good indicators of local air quality. By recording these in your survey, you’ll discover more about your local air pollution.
Taking part is simple and fun. All you need is a copy of the survey workbook and field guide, which can be downloaded for free from this website.
Once you’ve completed your survey make sure you submit your results online so we can include them in our research. You’ll instantly see your contribution on our results map and be able to check how your findings compare with others.
We hope you enjoy taking part in the survey.
Take part
Join in our survey and learn all about local air quality
Please show care and respect to our environment.
Lichens may have lived there for many years.
Take part in the OPAL air survey and find out about air quality near you.
Everybody can get involved - all ages and abilities. You'll learn new skills and help our scientists answer important questions about the impacts of air quality across England.
How to join in
To get started, print out colour copies of the workbook and guides below.
The OPAL air survey consists of two separate activities. The first records lichens on trees and the second looks for tar spot on sycamore leaves. Each activity should take no more than 60 minutes once familiar with the guides.
Submitting your results
Once you've completed the survey, it is important to enter your results on the OPAL website. It doesn't matter if you haven't found many lichens or tar spots, your findings are still extremely useful to us. If you wish, you can opt to submit the results for one activity only.
After entering your results, you'll instantly be able to view your contribution on our interactive results map. You can also compare your results with others across the country.
Downloads - everything you need to take part
 Workbook:Background information and recording sheet |
 Field guide:Instructions and lichen guide |
 Tree guide:Learn to identify common UK trees |
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You may download these documents for use in the context of the OPAL project only. All other rights are reserved.
Want to learn more about lichens?
An online guide to the nine lichens being studied in this survey.
Discover more about lichens and how they reproduce with this interactive slideshow on the Key to Nature website.
Identify bugs with iSpot
Share your wildlife pictures on iSpot and experts and enthusiasts will help to identify them.
Get to know your trees
Browse our photo gallery of common trees to help you identify them correctly.
How old??!
I've been learning about lichens in preparation for the next OPAL Survey, which involves looking at lichens to assess air quality (visit air survey page.) I have to confess that I knew very little about lichens until a couple of months ago, despite them being present nearly everywhere I look now! Below is Xanthoria parietina, which is a nitrogen-loving species
Lichens are half algae and half fungi, and grow on trees, rocks, soil, concrete, gravestones, metal... basically anywhere they have long enough to get established. They are extremely slow growing, some species only growing by 1mm per year! The oldest specimen in Britain is thought to date from 1195 AD! It's on a stone circle in Oxfordshire - has anyone seen it? And if so, can you post a photo of it?
I was really impressed with the age of that lichen, and then I found out that some specimens in Lappland may be 9,000 years old.....
- OPAL Yorkshire and the Humber
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