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 five 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 the 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 2008/50/EC 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.
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 being 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 aims to identify the decision-making processes and capacity gaps in implementing AQPs in the targeted urban metropolitan areas of the partner regions. It will also 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. The project will also 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 will aim to improve the effectiveness of the AQPs in the partner regions under the current and near future climate conditions. It will also provide a quantitative assessment of premature mortality from exposure to high pollution levels in the partner regions, considering temperature modification effects, and will establish customised urban environmental modelling systems in the partner regions. The project will 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. It will organise and implement a unified environment management system (EMS), tailored to each partner region and easily replicated in other cities, and it will establish decision-making regulations in the partner regions for ensuring the proper implementation of the updated AQPs with the use of EMS.
RESULTS
Expected results:
- Three extended reports, one for each targeted urban agglomeration, providing:
- A detail description of the decision-making framework and capacity gaps associated with the implementation of AQPs in the study areas.
- An air quality assessment with respect to the current and near future climate conditions.
- Two updated emission sources inventories (one for the current and one for the near future climate conditions).
- An assessment of the effectiveness of existing and alternative AQPs-related mitigation measures with respect to the current and near future climate conditions.
- Three improved AQPs, one for each partner region.
- Three integrated environmental modelling systems, one for each targeted urban area.
- Three health impact assessment of the synergistic effects of air pollution and elevated temperatures under the current climate conditions, one for each partner region.
- Three operational health-related warning systems, one for each targeted urban area.
- Three operational implementations of a unified EMS.
- Three decision-making regulations, one for each partner region, on the implementation of the updated AQPs through EMS.
