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Caricchia et al. / Qualità dell’ambiente urbano – XI Rapporto (2015)
ISPRA Stato dell’Ambiente 63/15 pagg. 504-546
505
Abstract
Air pollution is a key topics, due to the relevance of related health and environmental
risks.
This chapter shows the urban air quality related indices, based on observed levels in
2014, compared with the limit and objective values imposed by the legislation in
force.
A preliminary 2015 air quality assessment was also shown, related only to the first
six month PM10 daily exceedances, and to the summer ozone.
The analysis was based on the statistics provided by the ARPA/APPA; the synthetic
indices reported here were elaborated by ISPRA.
Results shown that the benzene, arsenicum, cadmium and nickel limit (annual mean)
were never exceeded, confirming the previous year observations.
Besides there were only a few exception to a complete attainment for PM2.5
(annual
mean exceeded in Milano) and for benzo(a)pirene (exceedances recorded in Torino,
Bolzano and Terni, other than Milano).
Regarding the PM10 daily limit a larger number of exceedances were found (30 non
attainment urban areas): among these, 18 already exceed the limit value as the
2015 first six month assessment. Moreover NO
2
annual limit exceedance was
recorded in 20 cities, at least from one monitoring station and the ozone long term
objective was largely unattained in 2014 as well as in 2015.
As a whole the distance to the EU limit and target values continued to be large.
In this context it is worthwhile to note a general air quality improvement in 2014
compared to the previous years. This qualitative observation seems in agreement
with the quantitative trend analysis carried out recently on long term air pollution
time series in Italy (ISPRA 2014), though it should be noted that the natural inter-
annual variability in the meteorological condition, favoring more or less the pollutants
dispersion, could be the main reason for the relatively low level observed in 2014.
Keywords
Urban air quality, Monitoring, Air pollution