Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
A subset of these areas has been selected on the basis of various criteria, one of
which was the availability of information about air quality management.
6
The
subset included the following cities and regions, for which a more detailed analysis
was performed:
• Athens, Greece (pollutants concerned: PM
10
,NO
2
)
• Ko
ˇ
ice, Slovak Republic (PM
10
)
• Krak
´
w, Southern Poland, Poland (PM
10
,NO
2
)
• Lisbon, Portugal (PM
10
,NO
2
)
• London, United Kingdom (NO
2
)
• Milan, Po Valley, Italy (PM
10
,NO
2
)
• Paris, France (PM
10
,NO
2
)
• Sofia, Bulgaria (PM
10
,NO
2
)
• Stuttgart, Germany (PM
10
,NO
2
)
The city of Krak´w is considered representative of other cities in east central
Europe with high industrial emissions (such as Katowice, Ostrava). Similarly, in the
case of Milan, information will be given for the whole Po Valley if available.
To identify comparable non-critical areas, NO
2
and PM levels and the trend of
these pollutants were analysed in cities across the EU. Taking the criteria for non-
critical areas into account, Berlin was selected as a comparable non-critical area.
7
Other cities or areas which fit the criteria for “non-critical areas” either have a
special emission structure (which eases abatement measures), or they are compara-
bly small, or largely comparable to Berlin with respect to their dispersion
conditions or modal split of traffic; in several cases the available information
about air quality assessment and management is not enough. Therefore, Berlin is
the only non-critical area which is discussed here in detail.
5.3
Information about Critical and Non-critical Areas
5.3.1 General Information
The area and population sizes of the selected areas are given for the metropolitan
area in most cases, as the city boundaries often denote a smaller area than that of the
conurbation (Table
2
). The city with the largest population is London, followed by
Paris and Milan. About 42 million people are living in these selected critical areas
and about 3.4 million people in the non-critical area of Berlin.
6
The latter criteria excluded southern Spain, as no air quality plans and time extension notification
were available at the time of writing.
7
Scandinavian cities have been excluded as the sparse air quality problems are mostly due to
winter sanding only. In addition, due the rather low background levels, these cities are not
comparable to central European cities.
