5th June marks World Environment Day, an important reminder for us to continue championing awareness and action to protect our planet.
This year’s theme is air pollution. At Tetra Tech, we are committed to working with clients to reduce development impact on air quality through a variety of projects and initiatives. Part of that includes continuing to provide our air quality services to help our clients minimise impact on the environment through their schemes.
The same also goes for the support we provide through Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), not just in the UK, but in other countries like Poland that rank particularly highly in pollution. Since 2009, we have completed 58 EIAs for a variety of Polish local, regional, and national road projects totalling circa 440 kilometres of road.
On top of analysing anticipated levels of air pollution arising from traffic, we have made sure to recommend essential countermeasures. These include planting greenery to absorb pollution in places where levels exceed the threshold values, and establishing alternative paths situated far away from housing.
Alongside that, we also carried out 36 EIAs for railways and tram lines totalling 868 kilometres in length. While their electric nature means they don’t heavily pollute air, associated construction machinery has the potential to contribute to air pollution. Our team has been involved in the technical design of many of these railway and tram projects to ensure they are as environmentally friendly as possible.