European air quality and health professionals cooperate with authorities and users for better air quality in Europe.
By Bruce Rolstad Denby, senior researcher NILU
TRANSPHORM is an EU FP7 funded project providing advanced knowledge on the impact of transport emissions on human health in Europe. With NILU as one of the partner organizations, the project’s 3rd annual meeting has been held at NILU, Kjeller on December 2012. The meeting highlighted the need for enhanced modeling activity in the cities used as case studies within TRANSPHORM. These results are essential for the success of the project.
Integrated Impact Assessment
The project aims at developing and implementing an integrated methodology to assess the impacts of particulate matter (PM) from air pollution related to transport on human health. This methodology will be developed and implemented for five cities along the so called ‘causal chain’ – from drivers, through emissions, concentrations and exposure, to effects. TRANSPHORM is a European project, but addresses emissions on both the European and city scale. The work is complemented by air quality modeling and health impact assessment.
From European to city scale
One of the five target cities in TRANSPHORM is Oslo. “For Oslo, NILU is developing and implementing new emission inventories for PM2.5, PM10, PAH (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), EC (elemental carbon), and PNC (particle number concentrations)”, explains Bruce Rolstad Denby, senior scientist at NILU. “Concentrations for these compounds will be calculated and used as input for health studies, e.g. to help develop new relationships between air quality and health impacts. The air quality models will also be used to determine the health impact of transport related emission reduction plans (for the years 2020 and 2030), both local and European wide.”
TRANSPHORM brings together European air quality and health researchers, along with city and European users and stakeholders, to improve the knowledge of transport related airborne PM and its impact on human health.
Multiple tasks
NILU is not only limited to modeling of air quality and scenarios in Oslo, it is also participating in a number of other areas including:
- Supporting air quality modelling for Prague through the use of AirQUIS
- Development of methods for improved modelling of particle number concentrations.
- Source apportionment studies using new and extensive datasets from 10-20 cities in Europe
- User and stakeholder interactions
The project is closely linked to the ESCAPE project (European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects, www.escapeproject.eu).
Further information: www.transphorm.eu