WHO European Centre for Environment and Health

1. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EMEP Workshop on Particulate Matter Measurement & Modeling April 20-23, 2004, New Orleans, LA Goals and needs for PM monitoring and modeling in Europe Jürgen Schneider Chairperson EMEP SB Project Manager at WHO for Air Quality and Health (AIQ) WHO European Centre for Environment and Health

2. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health Content • The Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) • Review of the Gothenburg Protocol • Needs • Air quality protection in the EU • Existing legislation • The Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) Programme • Needs

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4. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • 8 protocols: EMEP (financing instrument); SOx (2x); NOx; VOC; POPs; HM; and MPME (Gothenburg Protocol addressing S,NOx, NHy, VOC-> acidification, eutrophication and O3) • Non of them is directly addressing PM, but important precursorsBUT: Assessment of cost and benefits: PM-related (ancillary) benefits seem to outweigh any other (environmental and health) benefits by far

5. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • Regionalcharacter of fine PM Source: Puxbaum et al., 2004 • For Gothenburg protocol review • PM related health effects high up on the agenda!

6. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • How to define PM targets? • PM limit values • Sources related regulations • „Effect-based“ approach – reduce overall effects at minimal costs • Result: • Not a universal AQ standard, but rather a emission reduction strategy that reduces health impact effecively!

7. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • Integrated assessment is used to identify effective emission reduction strategies • IAM is a to link the effects of changes in emissions of air pollution (e.g., by introducing abatement measures) on levels of air pollution and/or effects on health • Needs: • Emissions: reporting guidelines request data on activities, TSP, PM10 and PM2.5 (EMEP) • AQ data: monitoring strategy for PM (EMEP) • Models: EMEP unified Eulerian model extended to cover PM (EMEP) • IAM that covers PM (EMEP) • Effect related indicator: Review of health aspects of air polution with PM (WHO)

8. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • WHO Systematic review of PM pollution • PM pollution at current levels has been linked to several severe health endpoints, including a marked reduction in life expectancy • No no-effect threshold could be identified • Fine PM mass is (still) an appropriate indicator for assessing health effects, even though • Toxicology indicates importance of HM, OC, endotoxins and UF particles • Coarse PM is linked to some morbidity endpoints, probably independent of fine PM • Further decrease in PM pollution is likely to have considerable health benefits

9. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health RR from time-series studies

10. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • TF on Health (WHO) recommendations for integrated assessment modelling: • Reduction of life expectancy as health endpoint • Use of PM2.5 as indicator for PM related health effects • RR from extended ACS (JAMA: Pope, 2002) • Linear concentration-response function • No counterfactual level, but only anthropogenic fraction • What is needed: • Annual mean of (anthropogenic) fine PM mass for rural and urban background • Population data (including life tables)

11. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • Use of IAM • Construct Business as usual scenario (‚baseline scenario‘) • Assess impact of BAU on environmental objectives • Investigate costs and effects of additional control options • Optimisation mode: „maximum effects for minimum costs“ • Goal of the optimisation: For a given set of environmental targets (e.g., maximum reduction in concentration or effects) find the least-cost set of measures • Some sources are more strongly linked than others via the atmosphere to ‘sensitive’ receptors, i.e. a densely populated area (as indicated by the source-receptor relationships) • Some sources are cheaper to control than others (as indicated by the cost curves)

12. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • Integrated Assessment modelling with RAINS Validated atmospheric model that link anthropogenic emissions to ambient PM levels Projections for energy, traffic, industry, agriculture,.. Emission data, sector specific

13. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • What is needed? • A model that links anthropogenic emissions of primary PM and precursors of secondary PM to ambient levels of fine PM at rural and urban locations to calculate source-receptor relationships • The EMEP unified Eulerian model is able to • Calculate the regional component of main anthropogenic PM fractions (sulphate, nitrate, ammonium, some primary components) with enough accuracy for the assessment of the outcome of different control measures

14. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health LRTAP • But needs to be • developed further for the full assessment of the anthropogenic fraction of PM2.5including a proper understanding and description of secondary organic aerosol formation (differentiation of prim./sec. and anthropogenic/biogenic) Illmitz Illmitz Ispra Ispra modelled observed modelled observed

15. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health Conclusions We need within the Convention • Models that link the main anthropogenic emissions sources to fine PM levels; this requires (better) understanding of the atmospheric processes • Monitoring: Spatial patterns of main species contributing to (fine) PM mass Trend information

16. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy • European Union AQ policies • Some differences: • Regional, urban and local air pollution • Geographical coverage • ‘Compliance regime’: Infringement procedure

17. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy One of the objectives of the 6th EAP is to establish ..... a high level of quality of life and social well being for citizens by providing an environment where the level of pollution does not give rise to harmful effects on human health and the environment.

18. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy • Air quality directives (Air quality framework directive & daughter directives) • NEC Directive (ceilings for S, NOx, Nred, VOC) • Several source related directives (mobile, LCP, industrial installations, waste treatment,…) • Product regulations (fuel, VOC,..)

19. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy • Air Quality Directives • Define and establish objectives for ambient air quality in the EU; 1. DD: LV for PM10 (daily and annual); • Assess ambient air quality in the EU using common methods and criteria (ref method, siting criteria,...); • Produce adequate information on ambient air quality and ensures its availability to the public; • Maintain ambient air quality where it is good and improve it in other cases -> necessity to comply with LV.

20. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy Air Quality Directives request Assessment of pollution levels throughout the territory: mainly based on monitoring; ~ 1000 PM10 sites are operated currently in Europe; however, data are sometimes of unknown quality; no mandatory monitoring of composition! Up-to-date information of the population -> automated methods for PM monitoring; however, reference method is manual gravimetric method Compliance with a LV at a given years -> necessity to calculate projections for total PM10 mass, taking into account regional, urban and local contributions

21. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy Clean Air for Europe  This programme of technical analysis and policy development will lead to the adoption of a thematic strategy on air pollution in mid 2005. The thematic strategy will contain a long-term, strategic and integrated policy advice to protect against significant negative effects of air pollution on human health and the environment and might be followed by conrete policy proposals.

22. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health EU Air quality policy • For PM, an expert group was established; the group finalised a position paper on PM recently • The PM Working Group recommends • the use of PM2.5 rather than PM10 as the principal metric for assessing exposure to PM • no single PM level at this time. Rather, values within the range 12 to 20 µg/m³ should be used as an input to the integrated assessment procedure • the use of alternative approaches, such as gap closure or targets, to supplement (but not replace) the use of limit values. • setting up of ~ 20 supersites (different mass fractions; chemical composition, #concentration,..)

23. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health Reduction of exposure!

24. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health Conclusions We need within CAFE (in addition to what is needed for LRTAP): Assessment of levels throughout the territory of PM10 and PM2.5 (annual + daily) Projections of PM mass Differentation between local/regional and transboundary component of PM

25. WHO European Centre for Environment and Health http://www.euro.who.int/air http://www.emep.int http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/cafe/index.htm http://www.unece.org/env/lrtap/ Thanks!