The European Union has recognized since long the strong impacts of air pollution on human health and the environment in general (EC, 2001). While there are success stories of European air pollution policies (such as the case of sulphur dioxide, that has definitely decreased) other pollutants as particulate matter, ground level ozone and nitrogen dioxide are still of concern.
The latest study from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2013) provides strong evidences in this respect, clearly linking longterm exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) with deaths due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, as well as increased morbidity, particularly in children and asthmatics. According to the European Environmental Agency (EEA, 2015), more than 80% of the urban population in the EU Member States is exposed to PM levels above the WHO guidelines. This translates into a decrease of life expectancy of more than eight months (on average), and up to two years in the most polluted areas. Air pollution also causes significant damage to ecosystems and the environment. Ground level ozone damages agricultural crops and vegetation. Nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and ammonia contribute to the acidification of soil, lakes and rivers, causing loss of biodiversity. Ammonia and NOx also damage water ecosystems introducing excessive amount of nutrients, in turn causing algal blooms and water hypoxia – a process known as ‘eutrophication’. Estimates say that two-thirds of the protected sites in the EU Natura 2000 network are currently under severe threat from air pollution.
The awareness of this difficult situation and the simultaneous growing concern in the public opinion has fostered the launch of a number of research and coordination projects, particularly within the 7th Framework and the Life+ Programs, to best integrate the ongoing scientific activities and make their results available to the decision makers at the different levels.
Among the many actions developed in this context, this special issue of “Environmental Science and Policy” presents some of the main results of the APPRAISAL, SEFIRA and ACCENT-Plus projects.
APPRAISAL (www.appraisal-fp7.eu) was aimed at performing an overall review of the air quality and health assessment methodologies used by Member States at regional and local level; analyzing the limitations of the currently available assessment methods, and evaluating the possibility of implementing Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM) tools. The project developed guidelines to make key stake-holders, and in particular policy-makers aware of current research/application achievements and identified key areas to be addressed by research and innovation in the next coming years. The project was run from 2012 to 2015 with the participation of a large consortium formed by fifteen research partners and six representatives of stake-holders.
SEFIRA (www.sefira-project.eu/), on socio economic implications for individual responses to air pollution policies, had the objective of creating a European coordination of transdisciplinary scientific and socio-economic resources in order to support the review and implementation of air quality legislation by the European Commission. It gave special attention to the socio-economic dimension of air quality policies in order to improve their effectiveness and acceptability. Individual behaviors and choices were thus analyzed in a socio-economic context ranging from the local to the European level. The action involved nine partners from six European countries and terminated in 2016.
ACCENT-Plus (www.accent-network.org/) aimed at reaching out to the policy community to facilitate the transfer of research results into policy development and decision-making. The prerequisite to achieve this goal was to assure the coordination and integration of the European science community in the field of atmospheric composition change and to strengthen the outreach from the scientific analyses into the policy arena. The project has been active from 2010 to 2014 with participants from eight EU countries and Israel.
This special issue builds on the results of the aforementioned projects and is introduced by a paper (Guariso et al. “A decision framework for integrated assessment modelling of air quality at regional and local scale”) that explains how the problems related to anthropogenic air pollution, their impacts and the necessary mitigation measures can be framed within the well-known DPSIR (Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response) suggested by the EEA. Adopting this scheme, it has been possible to systematically analyse a large body of experiences (air quality plans as well as research projects) developed in Europe and to evaluate the detail with which each DPSIR block has been investigated. Moreover, the paper shows how the most recent scientific developments in the evaluation of the impacts and the social acceptance can be integrated into IAM systems.
The paper “Overview of current regional and local scale air quality modelling practices: assessment and planning tools in the EU” by Thunis et al. reviews the different methodologies of the current integrated assessment modelling practices developed and applied within the EU Member States, to assess the effects of local and regional emission abatement policy options on air quality and human health, and suggests new research and innovation actions to undertake.
A guidance to the adoption of advanced IAM approaches is described in the paper “Air Quality Integrated Assessment Modelling in the context of EU policy: a way forward” by P. Viaene et al., which underlines that the different elements of the IAM methodology can be addressed at different levels of detail, taking into account the availability of data, the regional/local specificities, the financial resources and the actual purpose of the assessment. The ideal model should ensure that credible results are obtained at a minimal effort or cost. However, model credibility, which is essential to acceptance of an IAM by stakeholders, implies the evaluation of model uncertainty and the communication of policy relevant model results.
The paper "Applying integrated assessment methodologies to air quality plans: two European cases" by Miranda et al., presents the application of an IAM system (RIAT+, the Regional Integrated Assessment Tool,
www.riatplus.eu) to determine suitable abatement measures for air quality improvement in two case studies,
Brussels Capital Region, Belgium, and the Porto Urban Area, Portugal. The application of this IAM system allows the analysis of the existing plans and indicates the most effective measures to be adopted for each local domain.
Evaluating the robustness of the results of environmental models is particularly challenging for air quality IAMs, where uncertainty and sensitivity analyses should be assessed not only for each single component of the system, but also for the overall modelling chain. The paper by C. Carnevale et al. “Uncertainty evaluation in air quality planning decisions: a case study for Northern Italy” extends and rationalises the information available on uncertainty/sensitivity analysis, considering environmental models in general in the first place, and then focusing on air quality IAMs. The study shows how the uncertainty on drivers of emissions propagates over the whole modelling chain in an application to the Lombardy region, Italy.
Maione et al. in the paper "Air quality and climate change: designing new win-win policies for Europe" analyse the fact that, even if the domains of air pollution and climate change are intimately connected, they are still often viewed as separate issues, dealt with by different science communities and within different policy frameworks. On the contrary, many mitigation options and coordinate actions could offer the possibility to both improve air quality and mitigate climate change; while, at the same time, mitigation options that may provide benefits to one aspect, could worsen the situation in the other.
The paper "Air quality as a contested social field in four European metropolitan areas: evidences and research hypothesis from SEFIRA FP7 Project", by Giardullo et al., analyses and compares the social drivers influencing
air quality governance in four EU countries which may reduce the impacts of air quality policies. The paper points to the need of promoting an integrated approach as a strategy for the design of future emission reduction measures.
Finally, in "Modelling individual preferences for environmental policy drivers: Empirical evidence of Italian lifestyle changes using a latent class approach", Valeri et al. investigate the public preferences for the environmental policy drivers in Italy. The paper discusses how lifestyle-changes are perceived by the population and their crucial role in reducing premature deaths due to atmospheric pollution.
REFERENCES
EC, 2001. Commission communication of 4 May 2001 "The Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) Programme: Towards a Thematic Strategy for Air Quality".
EEA, 2015. Report No 5/2015, ‘Air quality in Europe – 2015 report’ (
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/air-quality-in-europe-2015)
WHO, 2013. Report “Health risks of air pollution in Europe – HRAPIE project”
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