The ENVIBASE-Project

Documentation / Online Handbook

Air Quality

In all the partner cities the industrial emissions (i.e. SO₂, dust) have been drastically reduced over the last decade, so that now the main pollution everywhere is caused by traffic. Therefore the data on air quality concern mainly traffic emissions with data on carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides, benzene etc.

In addition to this traffic emission data held by all partner cities, other data has been collected by an omni-present monitoring system:

• Moscow holds a detailed cadaster on industrial emissions, as all industries are forced by law to inform the public authority about their emissions. It has elaborated a map showing the summary of emissions and evaluation maps considering the meteorological potential of air pollution.
• Milan has elaborated maps indicating the different emission sources as heating plants, industry, agriculture, transport and compiled a summarising map.
• Berlin is also analysed the effects of air pollution through bio-indicators as lichens and tobacco as well as damages in the surrounding forests. An innovative approach has been made with the CO₂ emission map on urban block level. Even if the greenhouse effect is a problem which has to be faced on word-wide scale, this map, primarily orientated according to the public`s increasing sensitivity to this matter, can be a basis for a CO₂ emission cadaster.

Maps on air pollution showing emission sources, pollution levels and effects on organisms visualise the basic problem of life quality in urban areas, forcing political decisions on structural measures (change of heating fuels) and territorial policies (displacement of industries) and consequently address the planning.

Indications for the most commonly produced and important maps/results for an Environmental Information System

• Emission and pollution levels for different parameters (indicating also the sources)
• Evaluation of emission through bio-indicators
• CO₂ emission map on urban block level; this map should consider the summary of energy consumption expressed in CO₂ equivalents for each block.