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This report estimates the health risk related to air pollution in 2020 based on the latest Air Quality Guidelines published by the World Health Organization. The estimates consider the number of premature deaths and years of life lost related to exposure to fine particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide across Europe. A sensitivity analysis to the changes in concentration-response functions and counterfactual concentrations is performed to understand the impact of the new Air Quality Guidelines on the mortality outcome estimates. The sensitivity analysis also includes the concentration response functions discussed in the ELAPSE study, a review on the latest European epidemiological studies. This report estimates the mortality related to air pollution in 2020 based on the latest Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) published by the WHO, using the concentration-response functions (CRF) for PM2.5, NO2, and O3, and the AQG levels recommended for PM2.5 and NO2. The estimates show that the largest relative mortality risk is observed in central and eastern Europe for PM2.5, central and southern Europe for NO2, and south and eastern Europe for O3. The lowest impact is found in northern and north-western Europe. The mortality attributed to air pollution in 2020 compared to 2019 increased for PM2.5 and decreased for NO2 and O3. Apart from the changes in concentrations and demographics, the COVID19 pandemic seems to also have an influence on these changes: the reduction in PM2.5 concentration was counteracted by the excess of deaths due to the pandemics, and the reduction in NO2 concentration as a result of the lockdown measures was more impactful in reducing mortality than the increasing impact of excess of deaths. Changing assumptions on CRF and counterfactual concentrations have implications in the final estimates of mortality health outcomes. The sensitivity analysis shows that it is not straightforward to assess which assumptions estimate the highest health impacts when both factors change. In this case, the outcome will depend on the concentration at the grid-cell level. The new CRFs are expected to reduce the health outcomes for NO2 and increase for PM2.5 and O3, when compared to the previous ones. However, increasing counterfactual concentrations from 0 to 5 µg/m3 for PM2.5, decreases the estimations, and decreasing from 20 to 10 µg/m3 for NO2, increases the estimation. Overall, when aggregated to all countries, the health outcomes with the new assumptions are, if compared to the old assumptions, reduced by over 40 % for PM2.5 and increased by 50 % and 30 % for NO2 and O3, respectively, in 2020., OCP/EEA/CAS/21/005-ETC/HE Work programme 2022

This report summarises the methodology to derive a classification matrix based on noise and air quality data at grid level inside cities representing health risks: premature deaths for air pollution and annoyance for noise. The resulting index provides spatial information on the areas most affected combining noise and air pollution across European urban areas. This information can build on and contribute to the EEA’s integrated assessments and it is going to be used to disseminate information on the European environment to policy makers and to European citizens., OCP/EEA/CAS/21/005-ETC-HE

This report assesses the health risk to air pollution exposure for the year 2019 and how close the EU is to reach the 2030 target as established in the Zero Pollution Action Plan. The report includes a benefit analysis of the gains in avoided mortality should different EU standards and WHO recommendations have been reached already in 2019. Map downloads: https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/3c72b3a2-af82-4595-82b2-b205e74a90cf The health risk related to exposure to air pollution (fine particulate matter - PM2.5, ozone - O3, and nitrogen dioxide - NO2) in 2019 was estimated in terms of number of premature deaths and years of life lost related to exposure to for 41 European countries, including the 27 EU Member States. In 2019, air pollution continued to drive a significant burden of premature death and disease in the 41 countries reporting to EEA: 373,000 premature deaths were attributed to chronic exposure to PM2.5; 47,700 premature deaths were attributed to chronic NO2 exposure; 19,070 premature deaths were attributed to acute O3 exposure. The analysis on the EU’s progress to reach the 2030 target established in the Zero Pollution Action Plan shows a steady decrease in the number of premature deaths along the years, and if it continues to fall at a comparable rate in the future, then the target would be achieved by 2032. Had the new WHO air quality guideline level for PM2.5 of 5 µg/m3 been attained already in 2019 everywhere in Europe, the number of estimated premature deaths would have been at least 58 % lower. On the other hand, the attainment of the EU limit value for PM2.5 of 25 µg/m3 would have left the estimated number of premature deaths unchanged in EU-27., OCP/EEA/ACC/18/001-ETC/ATNI

This report describes the methodology applied to assess health risks across Europe in 2016, published in the European Environmental Agency’s Air Quality in Europe – 2019 report, and presents the health risk assessment for 2017., OCP/EEA/ACC/18/001-ETC/ATNI

The objective of this study was to evaluate three meteorological models (MM5, WRF and TRAMPER) by comparing the calculated meteorological parameters with observations over the Po Valley area (Italy) for 2005. The analysis shows that MM5 and WRF perform with similar quality, with advantages of WRF at following high resolution time patterns and better scores of MM5 at reproducing annual averages, noticed for precipitation and relative humidity calculations. Results from the TRAMPER model also reflect very well surface meteorological measurements, they may be however driven by data assimilation applied in this modelling system and thus strongly influenced by very local effects. This feature of TRAMPER may lead as well to large uncertainties in reproducing other parameters important for air quality modelling such as planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights, friction velocity (u*) values or stability conditions.

NO2 concentrations at the street level are a major concern for urban air quality in Europe and have been regulated under the EU Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. Despite the legal requirements, limit values are exceeded at many monitoring stations with little or no improvement during recent years. In order to assess the effects of future emission control regulations on roadside NO2 concentrations, a downscaling module has been implemented in the GAINS integrated assessment model. The module follows a hybrid approach based on atmospheric dispersion calculations and observations from the AirBase European air quality data base that are used to estimate site-specific parameters. Pollutant concentrations at every monitoring site with sufficient data coverage are disaggregated into contributions from regional background, urban increment, and local roadside increment. The future evolution of each contribution is assessed with a model of the appropriate scale – 28 × 28 km grid based on the EMEP Model for the regional background, 7 × 7 km urban increment based on the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model, and a chemical box model for the roadside increment. Thus, different emission scenarios and control options for long-range transport, regional and local emissions can be analysed. Observed concentrations and historical trends are well captured, in particular the differing NO2 and total NOx = NO + NO2 trends. Altogether, more than 1950 air quality monitoring stations in the EU are covered by the model, including more than 400 traffic stations and 70% of the critical stations. Together with its well-established bottom-up emission and dispersion calculation scheme, GAINS is thus able to bridge the scales from European-wide policies to impacts in street canyons. As an application of the model, we assess the evolution of attainment of NO2 limit values under current legislation until 2030. Strong improvements are expected with the introduction of the Euro 6 emission standard for light duty vehicles; however, for some major European cities, further measures may be required, in particular if aiming to achieve compliance at an earlier time., JRC.H.2-Air and Climate

NO2 concentrations at the street level are a major concern for urban air quality in Europe and have been regulated under the EU Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. Despite the legal requirements, limit values are exceeded at many monitoring stations with little or no improvement during recent years. In order to assess the effects of future emission control regulations on roadside NO2 concentrations, a downscaling module has been implemented in the GAINS integrated assessment model. The module follows a hybrid approach based on atmospheric dispersion calculations and observations from the AirBase European air quality data base that are used to estimate site-specific parameters. Pollutant concentrations at every monitoring site with sufficient data coverage are disaggregated into contributions from regional background, urban increment, and local roadside increment. The future evolution of each contribution is assessed with a model of the appropriate scale – 28 × 28 km grid based on the EMEP Model for the regional background, 7 × 7 km urban increment based on the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model, and a chemical box model for the roadside increment. Thus, different emission scenarios and control options for long-range transport, regional and local emissions can be analysed. Observed concentrations and historical trends are well captured, in particular the differing NO2 and total NOx = NO + NO2 trends. Altogether, more than 1950 air quality monitoring stations in the EU are covered by the model, including more than 400 traffic stations and 70% of the critical stations. Together with its well-established bottom-up emission and dispersion calculation scheme, GAINS is thus able to bridge the scales from European-wide policies to impacts in street canyons. As an application of the model, we assess the evolution of attainment of NO2 limit values under current legislation until 2030. Strong improvements are expected with the introduction of the Euro 6 emission standard for light duty vehicles; however, for some major European cities, further measures may be required, in particular if aiming to achieve compliance at an earlier time.

A collaborative research project for air pollution reduction was set up in 2006 between the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) and the Authorities of the Lombardy Region in Italy. Among other research activities the PO valley Model Intercomparison exercise (POMI) has been carried out in order to explore the changes in air-quality in response to changes in emissions. The starting point was the evaluation of the simulated particulate matter and ozone against observations for the year 2005 of the six participating Chemical Transport Models’ (CTM). As models were run with the same configuration in terms of spatial resolution, boundary condition, emissions and meteorology, the differences presented in the models’ results should only be related to their formulation. As described in the paper much effort has been put to improve the accuracy of emissions and meteorology. Nevertheless none of the models using the proposed meteorology succeeded to fulfill the performance criteria set in the 2008 Air Quality Directive and in the literature for particulate matter, while also for ozone the results are not very satisfying. Possible explanations for this common behavior and a discussion of the differences among models’ results are presented., JRC.H.2-Air and Climate