The infrastructure consisting of the community of analysts brought together by the OTAG process and associated communications capabilities (regular meetings, conference calls, web sites, mailing lists) has proven to be a valuable resource for conducting policy-relevant research and efforts should be made to maintain this infrastructure in the future. In addition, efforts are needed to address the lack of routine air quality and meteorological data suitable for analysis of transport over a broad range of episode conditions. In particular, the current monitoring network is primarily focused on the larger metropolitan areas whereas spatial coverage in less-populated areas or along boundaries of political jurisdictions is quite limited. The current monitoring network is also primarily geared towards monitoring ozone attainment status and trends. As well, measurements of ozone aloft or of ozone precursors are quite limited. All these measurements are needed both for transport assessments and to better evaluate the performance of photochemical models used to estimate control strategy impacts.
As the EPA reviews its current monitoring networks and plans monitoring programs for the future, this workgroup urges the Agency to consider enhancing the coverage and implementation of such measurement programs to allow for a better understanding of ozone transport in the future.
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