The national ambient air monitoring strategy: rethinking the role of national networks.

A current re-engineering of the United States routine ambient monitoring networks intended to improve the balance in addressing both regulatory and scientific objectives is addressed in this paper. Key attributes of these network modifications include the addition of collocated instruments to produce multiple pollutant characterizations across a range of representative urban and rural locations in a new network referred to as the National Core Monitoring Network (NCore). The NCore parameters include carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), reactive nitrogen (NOy), ozone (O3), and ammonia (NH3) gases and the major fine particulate matter (PM2.