PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Even though air quality has improved significantly over the past few decades, air pollution still poses a major threat to the environment and human health. Air pollution is a contributing factor to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases that are lowering mean life expectancy in the EU by around 2.2 years.
EU policy has focused on reducing emissions of 5 key air pollutants – nitrogen oxides, non-methane volatile organic compounds, sulphur dioxide, ammonia and fine particulate matter – which are particularly harmful to human health, with limits set for ambient pollutant concentrations. Levels of air pollutants nevertheless still exceed EU standards and the guidelines of the World Health Organisation. A special report by the European Court of Auditors in 2018 concluded that health within EU countries is not sufficiently protected. According to the Court, one of the main reasons is that air quality plans (AQPs), a key requirement of the EU Ambient Air Quality Directive, are not helping many areas to meet EU’s air quality standards. It highlighted poorly targeted measures, weak governance, a lack of cost-benefit analyses and a lack of impact-based orientation. Moreover, the new EU Air Quality Directive mandates EU Member States to adopt stricter, binding air quality plans by 2030.
Air pollution is particularly pronounced in urban areas due to the impact of urban heat islands and urban pollution islands. For example, elevated air temperatures enhance the photochemical processes, leading eventually to higher O3 levels. These problems are exacerbated by heat waves, which are increasingly frequent due to climate change. Air quality management in urban areas must therefore address these issues. Countries must ensure that AQPs address the urban environment as a whole, considering health-related impacts and these compounding effects.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE SIRIUS project aimed to identify the decision-making processes and capacity gaps in implementing AQPs in the 3 targeted urban metropolitan areas of the partner regions: Rome, Nicosia and Thessaloniki.
Specifically, the project aimed to:
- provide a thorough assessment of the current air quality status (air pollutant concentrations, emission sources, impact and effectiveness of AQP abatement measures) in the study cities,
- assess the air quality status in the near future in the targeted urban agglomerations considering the effects of climate change – through this assessment, the project aimed to improve the effectiveness of the AQPs in the partner regions under the current and near future climate conditions,
- provide a quantitative assessment of premature mortality from exposure to high pollution levels in the partner regions, considering temperature modification effects, and establish customised urban environmental modelling systems in the partner regions
- develop and validate a flexible health-related warning system, easily adaptable to each partner region, as well as to any urban agglomeration where public health information is vital,
- organise and implement a unified environmental management system (EMS), tailored to each partner region and easily replicated in other cities,
- establish decision-making regulations in the partner regions for ensuring the proper implementation of the updated AQPs with the use of EMS.
RESULTS
The project has successfully reached all of its foreseen objectives and has delivered the following outputs:
- 3 extended reports, 1 for each targeted urban agglomeration, providing a detailed description of the decision-making framework and capacity gaps for implementing AQPs, alongside an air quality assessment under current and near-future climate conditions, 2 updated emission source inventories (1 for the present and 1 for the near-future climate) and an evaluation of the effectiveness of existing and alternative AQP-related mitigation measures under both climate scenarios,
- 3 improved AQPs,
- 3 integrated environmental modelling systems,
- 3 health impact assessment of the synergistic effects of air pollution and elevated temperatures under the current climate conditions,
- 3 operational health-related warning systems,
- 3 operational implementations of a unified EMS,
- 3 decision-making regulations, i.e. documents that clarify how the updated AQPs should properly make use of the EMS.