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Appendix A National Air Quality Monitoring Program Fact Sheets The following information provides a fact sheet on a number of national ambient air monitoring networks including: State or Local Air Monitoring Stations (SLAMS) Network National Core (NCore) Network Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Stations (PAMS) PM2.5 Chemical Speciation Network (CSN) National Toxics Trends Network (NATTS) Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET) National Atmospheric Deposition Network (NADP) National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) Only the SLAMS, NCore, PAMS, CSN and NATTS pertain to the information covered in the Handbook. The other networks described are for the benefit of the reader.  Page intentionally left blank State or Local Air Monitoring Stations (SLAMS) Network Background The SLAMS make up the ambient air quality monitoring sites that are operated by State or local agencies for the primary purpose of comparison to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), but may serve other purposes such as: provide air pollution data to the general public in a timely manner; support compliance with air quality standards and emissions strategy development; and support air pollution research studies. The SLAMS network includes stations classified as NCore, PAMS, and Speciation, and formerly categorized as NAMS, and does not include Special Purpose Monitors (SPM) and other monitors used for non-regulatory or industrial monitoring purposes. In order to support the objectives, the monitoring networks are designed with a variety of monitoring sites that generally fall into the following categories which are used to determine: the highest concentrations expected to occur in the area covered by the network; typical concentrations in areas of high population density; the impact on ambient pollution levels of significant sources or source categories; the general backgro