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Qualità dell’ambiente urbano – XI Rapporto (2015)
ISPRA Stato dell’Ambiente 63/15 pagg. 548 - 565
549
Abstract
We estimated the population’s exposure to ambient air pollutants in urban areas via a
set of indicators, originally developed as part of the EU/WHO project ECOEHIS and
later used by the European Environmental Agency and Eurostat - Statistics for
sustainable Development - Public Health.
ISPRA annually processes these indicators with progressive improvement of
methodologies and criteria, to meet, based on the available data, the information
needed by the environmental policies.
According to criteria adopted at EU level, indicators related to particulate matter
(PM10 and PM2,5), nitrogen dioxide (NO
2
) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) are processed
using the pollutant’s annual mean concentration as a proxy of the exposure
concentration for urban populations. For ground-level ozone (O
3
), the “days exceeding
the long-term protection value for human health” (120 g/m
3
, average maximum daily
8-hour mean within a calendar year) have been used. The data used to represent the
indicators in the thematic maps come preferably from urban background stations
and, only if these are not available, from other urban stations.
Environmental data used are provided directly by the Regional Environmental Agencies
(ARPA-APPA), and are usually related to the municipality boundaries, in a few cases
they are related to the extended urban area.
For the year 2014, compared to the previous year, there has been an overall
reduction in the proportion of the population exposed, both to the legal limit, but also,
to the PM’s reference values for WHO. We shall consider that this decrease may
likely depend on favorable weather conditions.
Keywords
Exposure, Population, Air pollution, Particulate matter, Ozone, Nitrogen dioxide,
Benzo(a)pyrene