Indicator assessment
CONDITION
TREND
DATA QUALITY
Between 2018 and 2022, a total of 14,388 complaints were received by the EPA regarding environmental conditions. Noise was responsible for 80% of complaints and is clearly a significant concern in the ACT. Air pollution was responsible for 13% of the total complaints and was mainly in response to smoke (wood heaters and controlled burns).
CONDITION
Environmental condition is healthy across the ACT, OR pressure likely to have negligible impact on environmental condition/human health.
Environmental condition is neither positive or negative and may be variable across the ACT, OR pressure likely to have limited impact on environmental condition/human health.
Environmental condition is under significant stress, OR pressure likely to have significant impact on environmental condition/ human health.
Data is insufficient to make an assessment of status and trends.
TREND
DATA QUALITY
Adequate high-quality evidence and high level of consensus.
Limited evidence or limited consensus.
Evidence and consensus too low to make an assessment.
Assessments of status, trends and data quality are not appropriate for the indicator.
Introduction
For information on this indicator see Background: Air quality.
Identification of deterioration in amenity comes from community complaints received by the ACT Government. The number of complaints is dependent on a range of factors such as the sensitivity of community members to particular issues, and the number of complaints made about each individual event. Consequently, it is difficult to assess trends in amenity. Despite this, complaints data does provide information on the everyday environmental concerns of the ACT community.
Amenity complaints
Between 2018 and 2022, a total of 14,388 complaints were received by the EPA regarding environmental conditions (Figure 13). Noise was responsible for 80% of the total complaints (11,500) and is clearly a significant concern in the ACT. Noise complaints were dominated by amplified noise (mostly loud music) with construction noise also a common concern.
Figure 13: Complaints received by the ACT Environment Protection Authority, 2018 to 2022.
Data sourced from: ACT Environment Protection Authority.
Air pollution was responsible for 13% of the total complaints (1,853). Only 3% of complaints were about waterway pollution (444), 2% about land contamination (307), and 2% about light pollution (260).
Air pollution complaints were dominated by smoke (wood heaters and controlled burns) which accounted for 68% of the total air pollution complaints between 2015 and 2022. Complaints about air pollution are highest between May and August during peak wood heater usage. Odour accounted for 18%, and dust 12% of the total air pollution complaints.
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