More than half of European cities are still plagued by dirty air, data showed, despite a reduction in traffic emissions and other pollutants during last year’s lockdowns.
Cities in eastern Europe, where coal is still a major source of energy, fared worst of all, with Nowy Scz in Poland having the most polluted air, followed by Cremona in Italy, where industry and geography tend to concentrate air pollution, and Slavonski Brod in Croatia.
The three cleanest cities were Umea in Sweden, Tampere in Finland and Funchal in Portugal.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) took data from 323 cities in 2019 and last year, and found that in only 127 of them, or about 40 percent, levels of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) were below WHO recommended limits.
Fine particulate matter has the biggest health effect of the main sources of air pollution and causes more than 400,000 premature deaths per year across Europe.
The data showed an average over the two years and was only available for cities where consistent reporting was available, so not all European cities were covered. The UK was excluded, as the government has opted out of EEA membership, although other non-EU member states, such as Turkey, Switzerland and Norway, are members.
The EEA said that lockdown measures had led to large reductions in the levels of nitrogen dioxide, an irritant gas associated with emissions from diesel engines, but that levels of particulate matter had stayed high.
Nitrogen dioxide levels fell by more than 60 percent in some cities in the lockdowns of April last year, but decreases in levels of particulate matter were less dramatic, with declines of about 20 to 30 percent recorded in levels of large particulates (PM10) in April.
The agency’s experts said that this was because there are many more sources of particulate matter than just road traffic, including the combustion of fuel for heating and in industry, as well as from agriculture, as emissions of ammonia from fertilizer and animal manure combine with other pollutants in the atmosphere to form particulates.
Catherine Ganzleben, head of the EEA’s group on air pollution, environment and health, said that changes in behavior spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic could have an effect in the future.
“If people go back to the daily commute, or if they choose teleworking instead, that will disrupt these pollution patterns,” she said.
The air pollution data are to be available via a Web viewer, allowing people to compare their cities with others across Europe.
“This city air quality viewer allows citizens to see for themselves in an easy-to-use way how their city is doing compared to others on air pollution,” EEA executive director Hans Bruyninckx. “It provides concrete and local information which can empower citizens toward their local authorities to address the issues.”
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