How we monitor odour

We know that dust can be a real nuisance for communities. Managing and monitoring discharges to air, including dust, in our region is part of our responsibilities as a regulator under the Resource Management Act (RMA) and the Canterbury Air Regional Plan.

If a consented activity is likely to cause dust, it will have conditions placed on it to make sure all practical measures are being taken to lessen its effect. We then monitor these consents to check the conditions are being adhered to.

 
How we measure odour
 
Enforcement options for odour
 
Report a odour event

How we measure odour

Our dedicated odour and dust monitoring staff go through specialist training to measure and make judgements about odour.

When a report comes in from the community during business hours, wherever possible, our staff respond within 10-25 minutes. They will travel to the site where the odour was reported and work to verify the complaint using the FIDOL method described above. They then log the results in our pollution event system and take further action where necessary.

We also undertake proactive monitoring in some areas that have ongoing odour issues. During pro-active monitoring, our staff will ‘spot check’ locations near known odour emitters to determine whether there is any significant odour outside of the boundaries of their premises.

Key factors considered

Under the RMA, the primary concern is when an odour is considered to have an ‘offensive or objectionable’ effect.

We use criteria from the Ministry of the Environment to decide whether an odour can be considered to have an ‘offensive or objectionable’ effect and therefore reach the threshold for intervention.

The criteria to decide this considers the frequency, intensity, duration, offensiveness/character and location of the odour event of concern. These are known as the ‘FIDOL factors’.

  • Frequency - How often an individual is exposed to the odour
  • Intensity - The strength of the odour
  • Duration - The length of exposure
  • Offensiveness/character - The character relates to the 'hedonic tome' of the odour, which may be pleasant, neutral or unpleasant
  • Location - The type of land use and nature of human activities in the vicinity of an odour source

Different combinations of the ‘FIDOL factors’ can result in an odour being considered objectionable.

Depending on the severity, one instance may be enough to determine that a significant adverse effect has occurred. In other cases, if the event was short and sufficiently minor, odour emissions would need to be happening frequently for it to be considered to have adverse effects.

Enforcement options for odour

Under the RMA, the following enforcement tools may be used to respond to problem odour:

  • infringement notice (issued by council)
  • abatement notice (issued by council)
  • enforcement order (issued by the Environment Court)
  • interim enforcement order (issued by the Environment Court)
  • prosecution.

Our staff also proactively work with businesses and district councils to provide expertise to minimise the negative impacts of odour and improve the levels of compliance.

View the latest monitoring data

Report a odour event

You can report an odour event by:

The Smelt-it app (smelt-it.web.app) can be used on a mobile phone, tablet or desktop computer and allows you to easily report information to help our local team find the source of an offensive odour.

Further information

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