Los Angeles' gravest environmental problem is the smog that looms over some of its cities. The smog is due to Angelenos' reliance on the automobile as well as the geography of the area. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. Other cities can rely on rain to clear the smog but Los Angeles only averages 15 inches a year. To combat this problem the state of California has been working to limit pollution by mandating low emissions vehicles. Levels of pollution have begun to decline as the number of The number of Stage 1 smog alerts has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite the improvements, the 2006 annual report of the American Lung Association ranks L.A. as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution.
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