The chairman of an independent committee says there is no scientific basis for claims that industry emissions are affecting rock art in the Burrup near Dampier in Western Australia's north-west.

The chairman of the Burrup Rock Art Monitoring Committee, Associate Professor Frank Murray, says the current levels of nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide emissions are very low and are expected to remain that way in the future.

Professor Murray says there is no scientific basis for claims that emissions are harming the rock art.

He says some of Australia's leading scientists will be employed in the coming months to investigate the issue further.

"We'd be hopeful that work could commence fairly soon - that is, within two or three months and we would hope that within about a year preliminary results would start to be available, but ... many of the studies will take up to four years," he said.