Found 10000 publications. Showing page 322 of 400:
Grenseområdene Norge-Russland. Luft- og nedbørkvalitet, årsrapport 2019.
Smelteverkene i nordvest-Russland slipper ut store mengder svoveldioksid (SO2) og tungmetaller. Utslippene påvirker luft- og nedbørkvalitet i grenseområdene. Miljøovervåkingen viser at grenseverdier for SO2 er overholdt i kalenderåret 2019, samt for vinter 2018/19. I januar 2019 var det to episoder med høye konsentrasjoner av SO2 på Svanvik. 25. januar ble det sendt varsel til befolkningen i området. Målsettingsverdier for Ni og As er overholdt.
NILU
2020
The paper provides the annual update of the European air quality concentration maps and population exposure estimates for human health related indicators of pollutants PM10 (annual average, 90.4 percentile of daily means), PM2.5 (annual average), ozone (93.2 percentile of maximum daily 8-hour means, SOMO35, SOMO10) and NO2 (annual average), and vegetation related ozone indicators (AOT40 for vegetation and for forests) for the year 2017. The report contains also NOx annual average concentration map for 2017. The trends in exposure estimates in the period 2005-2017 for PM10 and ozone, resp. in the period 2007-2017 for PM2.5 are summarized. The analysis is based on interpolation of annual statistics of the 2017 observational data reported by EEA Member countries in 2016 and stored in the Air Quality e-reporting database. The mapping method is the Regression – Interpolation – Merging Mapping. It combines monitoring data, chemical transport model results and other supplementary data using linear regression model followed by kriging of its residuals (residual kriging). The paper presents the mapping results and gives an uncertainty analysis of the interpolated maps.
ETC/ATNI
2020
This program, «Monitoring of environmental contaminants in freshwater ecosystems and single species in large Norwegian lakes”, has covered sampling and determination of environmental contaminants by analyses of organisms in an aquatic, pelagic food web of Lake Mjøsa, and in the top predator in Lake Femunden. Samples of different trophic levels, from epipelagic zooplankton to the top predator brown trout, were collected during the late stages of the growth season in 2019. In this report, the status of contamination in the food web, trends and biomagnification potential of various environmental contaminants is discussed.
Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA)
2020
Monitoring of the atmospheric ozone layer and natural ultraviolet radiation. Annual Report 2019.
This report summarizes the results from the Norwegian monitoring programme on stratospheric ozone and UV radiation
measurements. The ozone layer has been measured at three locations since 1979: In Oslo/Kjeller, Tromsø/Andøya and
Ny-Ålesund. The UV measurements started in 1995. The results show that there was a significant decrease in stratospheric
ozone above Norway between 1979 and 1997. After that, the ozone layer stabilized at a level ~2% below pre-1980 level.
2019 was characterized by low ozone values in April and an “ozone hole” in Southern Norway in December 2019.
NILU
2020
Monitoring of long-range transported air pollutants in Norway. Annual Report 2019.
This report presents results from the monitoring of atmospheric composition and deposition of air pollution in 2019, and focuses on main components in air and precipitation, particulate and gaseous phase of inorganic constituents, particulate carbonaceous matter, ground level ozone and particulate matter. In 2019, it was an unusual wide-spread episode during April causing high concentrations of most pollutants at several sites.
NILU
2020
2020
The ClairCity Horizon2020 project aims to contribute to citizen-inclusive air quality and carbon policy making in middle-sized European cities. It does so by investigating citizens’ current behaviours as well as their preferred future behaviours and policy measures in six European cities1 through an extensive citizen and stakeholder engagement process. The project also models the possible future impacts of citizens’ policy preferences and examines implementation possibilities for these measures in the light of the existing institutional contexts in each city (Figure 0-1). This report summarises the main policy results for Ljubljana.
ClairCity Project
2020
The ClairCity Horizon2020 project aims to contribute to citizen-inclusive air quality and carbon policy making in middle-sized European cities. It does so by investigating citizens’ current behaviours as well as their preferred future behaviours and policy measures in six European cities1 through an extensive citizen and stakeholder engagement process. The project also models the possible future impacts of citizens’ policy preferences and examines implementation possibilities for these measures in the light of the existing institutional contexts in each city (Figure 0-1). This report summarises the main policy results for Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
ClairCity Project
2020
This report presents VOC (volatile organic compound) measurements carried out during 2018 at EMEP monitoring sites. In total, 20 sites reported VOC-data from EMEP VOC sites this year. Some of the data-sets are considered preliminary and are not included in the report.
The monitoring of NMHC (non-methane hydrocarbons) has become more diverse with time in terms of instrumentation. Starting in the early 1990s with standardized methods based on manual sampling in steel canisters with subsequent analyses at the lab, the methods now consist of a variety of instruments and measurement principles, including automated continuous monitors and manual flask samples. For oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs), sampling in DNPH-tubes with subsequent lab-analyses is still the only method in use at EMEP sites.
Within the EU infrastructure project ACTRIS-2, data quality issues related to measurements of VOC have been an important topic. Many of the institutions providing VOC-data to EMEP have participated in the ACTRIS-2 project, either as formal partners or on a voluntary basis. Participation in ACTRIS-2 has meant an extensive effort with data-checking including detailed discussions between the ACTRIS community and individual participants. There is no doubt that this extensive effort has benefited the EMEP-program and has led to improved data quality in general.
Comparison between median levels in 2018 and the medians of the previous 10-years period, revealed a similar north-to-south pattern for several species.
Changes in instrumentation, procedures, station network etc. during the last two decades make it difficult to provide a rigorous and pan-European assessment of long-term trends of the observed VOCs. In this report, we have estimated the long-term trends in NMHC over the 2000-2018 period at six sites by two independent statistical methods. These estimates indicate marked differences in the trends for the individual species. Small or non-significant trends were found for ethane over this period followed by propane which also showed fairly small reductions. On the other hand, components linked to road traffic (ethene, ethyne and benzene) showed the strongest drop in mean concentrations, up to 60-80% at some stations.
The persistent heatwave in summer 2018 in northern and central Europe lead to higher isoprene-levels than normal. The data indicate a clear relationship between isoprene and afternoon temperature at the sites. An exponential fit is seen to be well suited for the relationship between isoprene and temperature.
NILU
2020
Equinor Mongstad. Spredningsberegninger av utslipp til luft.
NILU har vurdert spredning av utslipp til luft fra Mongstad raffineri. Bakgrunnen er krav fra Miljødirektoratet i forbindelse med ny virksomhetstillatelse. Fokus i studien er på NOx, SOx og støv/partikler. Timemiddelkonsentrasjoner er beregnet ved hjelp av modellen CONCX. Regionale beregninger av konsentrasjoner og avsetning er utført med WRF-EMEP modellsystem. CONCX-beregningene viser at maksimalt beregnet timemiddel er langt lavere enn norske grenseverdier. WRF-EMEP-beregningene viser lave maksimumsverdier av NOx/NO2, SO2 og svevestøv/PM10 i nærområdet til Mongstad raffineri. Alle beregnede maksimumsverdier er lavere enn norske grenseverdier. Av utslippene fra Mongstad avsettes 12 % av nitrogen, 17 % av svovel og 18 % av PM10 innenfor det innerste gridet (105 x 105 km2). Som et tillegg er det gjort vurderinger av de prioriterte stoffene bly, kvikksølv, krom, PCB7, kadmium og arsen. Bidraget fra Mongstad raffineri er lite.
NILU
2020
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
2020
The current report provides a short overview of previous years’ studies on long-term trends in O3, NO2 and PM and the role of meteorological variability for the concentration of these pollutants. The previous studies on the link between trends and meteorology has shown that these links could be estimated by a careful design of model setups using CTMs (chemical transport models). The conclusions from this work is that CTMs are certainly useful tools for explaining pollutant trends in terms of the separate impact of individual physio-chemical drivers such as emissions and meteorology although computationally demanding. The statistical GAM model that have been developed as part of the recent ETC/ACM and ETC/ATNI tasks could be considered as complementary to the use of CTMs for separating the influence of meteorological variability from other processes. The main limitation of the statistical model is that it contains no parameterisation of the real physio-chemical processes and secondly, that it relies on a local assumption, i.e. that the observed daily concentrations could be estimated based on the local meteorological data. We found clear differences in model performance both with respect to geographical area and atmospheric species. In general, the best performance was found for O3 (although not for peak levels) with gradually lower performance for NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 in that order. With respect to area, the model produced the best predictions for Central Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Czech Republic) and poorer agreement with observations in southern Europe. Although the GAM model did not detect many meteorology induced long-term trends in the data, the model is well suited for separating the influence of meteorology from the other driving forces, such as emissions and boundary conditions. The GAM model thus provides robust and smooth long-term trend functions corrected for meteorology as well as the perturbations from year to year, reflecting the variability in weather conditions. One could consider to define a set of performance criteria to decide if the GAM model is applicable for a specific station and parameter.
ETC/ATNI
2020
Health Risk Assessment of Air Pollution in Europe. Methodology description and 2017 results
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. The methodology applied is based on the work by de Leeuw and Horálek (2016), with a few adjustments. To estimate the health risk related to air pollution, the number of premature deaths and years of life lost related to exposure to fine particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide exposure were calculated for 41 countries across Europe. The results show that the largest health risks are estimated for the countries with the largest populations. However, in relative terms, when considering e.g., years of life lost per 100 000 inhabitants, the largest relative risks are observed in central and eastern European countries, and the lowest are found for the northern and north-western parts of Europe. Additionally to the assessment, a sensitivity analysis was undertaken to comprehend how much the presumed baseline concentration levels, the concentration below which no health effects are expected, affect the estimations. In addition, a benefit analysis, assuming attainment of the PM2.5 WHO guidelines across Europe, shows a reduction over 30 % of the 2017 premature deaths and years of life lost numbers.
ETC/ATNI
2020
In this report, we investigate the relative expanded uncertainty (REU) formula for comparing low-cost sensors (microsensors) and reference measurements. The purpose of the REU formula is to check if microsensor measurements follow the data quality objective (DQO) of the European Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC to be considered equivalent to a reference instrument. The project aimed to obtain a good understanding of the REU formula for its proper use in current and future projects involving microsensors.
NILU
2020
Norge har et eksisterende overvåkingsnettverk for å måle effekter av luftforurensninger som forsuring, overgjødsling og
ozoneksponering i økosystemer. Ved eventuell implementering av nytt NEC‐direktiv «takdirektiv» (2016/2284/EU) må Norge
rapportere inn overvåkingsnettverk og resultater fra overvåking av effekter av luftforurensninger i økosystemer.
I denne rapporten er dagens overvåkingsnettverk vurdert med hensyn til de krav som stilles i nytt NEC‐direktiv. Resultater viste
at for innsjøer og elver er dagens overvåkingsnettverk relatert til forsuring tilfredsstillende. For overgjødsling av skog, skogsjord
og terrestrisk natur er det behov for oppgraderinger av overvåkingsnettverket. I forhold til ozonskader i vegetasjon er det behov
for oppgraderinger av dagens overvåkingsnettverk.
Det vil påløpe kostnader for opprettelse av nye overvåkingsstasjoner og oppgraderinger av dagens overvåkingsnettverk.
Estimerte kostnader for å dekke mangler i eksisterende overvåkingsnettverk er angitt i rapporten.
Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA)
2020
Emissions outsourcing in the EU. A review of potential effects on industrial pollution.
This study reviews potential evidence for emissions outsourcing in the European Union as the reduction in industrial emissions in Europe may be linked to the relocation of industry abroad (i.e. away from Europe). Emission trends of selected industrial pollutants to air (PAH, SOx, B(a)P, PCB, Pb, Zn and Ni) were established for both domestic emissions and embodied emissions in imports using available data in the EXIOBASE environmentally extended multiregional input-output system. Despite the overall decreasing trends of domestic emissions in Europe, a great variation was observed in the decrease rate of direct emissions and the increase rates in embodied emissions, due to increasing import of associated products. In addition to the analysis of data in EXIOBASE, a review of literature shows that industries’ responses to environmental regulations differ greatly based on the nature of industrial activities. Despite imposing higher costs to industries, no evidence was found in the reviewed literature that European environmental regulations caused industries to relocate. However, once industries aim to relocate outside of Europe to benefit from economic factors, such as lowering their production cost, the degree by which environmental regulations are enforced in the country of relocation can play a significant role in selecting their new location.
ETC/ATNI
2020
Kartlegging av NO2-konsentrasjoner i luft ved E16 Arna – Vågsbotn ble utført av NILU på oppdrag fra Statens vegvesen.
Målingene ble utført med passive prøvetakere ved 10 steder i området Gaupås-Kalsås-Blinde. Prosjektet ble gjennomført
vinteren 2020 (28. januar – 24. mars) i et område som er utsatt for inversjonsforhold i vintermånedene.
Vinteren 2019-2020 viste seg til å bli en mild vinter, inversjonsforhold ble ikke registrert. NO2-konsentrasjonen var høyest den første uken målingene pågikk og ble gradvis lavere i påfølgende uker. De siste 2 ukene var påvirket av mindre trafikk som en følge av pandemitiltak. Middelkonsentrasjonen ved det mest forurensede målestedet over hele måleperioden var 22,9 μg/m3. Sammenligning av resultatene fra måleområdet med observasjoner fra målestasjoner i Bergen viste at NO2-konsentrasjonen rett ved E16 var på samme nivå som ved veinære stasjoner i Bergen.
NILU
2020
This report presents the ICP Materials database for the period October 2017 - November 2018. It includes environmental data from the ICP Materials trend exposure programme for 2017 - 2018, and in addition, data for temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation amount back to the end of the previous annual exposure porgramme in October/November 2015. The database consists of meteorological data (T, RH and precipitation amount) and pollution data, as gas concentrations, amounts of ions in precipitation, particle concentrations and amounts of particle deposition.
NILU
2020
A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation
In this report, the benefits of the use of RES to produce electricity are investigated from a life cycle perspective. Six different impact indicators for the production of electricity are estimated for all Member States in the period 2005 to 2018 for a total of sixteen different renewable and non-RES. Results show variability in impact intensities across Member States and years, depending among others on fuel conversion efficiency (for electricity produced using combustion processes) and capacity utilization (for electricity producing from non-combustion processes, such as wind power). Finally, an estimate is given on gross avoided impact by comparing historic values to a counterfactual scenario where the level of electricity production from RES is frozen at 2005 level. Results show that the increased use of photovoltaic and wind power have contributed significantly to gross avoided impacts across the investigated impact indicators. A trade-off is that the increased use of PV appears to have increased potential ecotoxicity related impacts of the European electricity production system. The increased use of solid biomass for the generation of electricity and heat generally has a positive effect on avoided impacts, at the cost of increased potential land occupation. Overall, these finding can aid policy makers and private actors direct efforts towards specific areas which offer opportunities to decrease the impacts.
ETC/CME
2020
This report details the methodology and assumptions for the ETC/CME report: A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation. In that report, gross avoided potential environmental impacts are estimated for electricity production in the EU-27 in the period 2005-2018. Avoided potential impacts are calculated by comparing the actual data with a counterfactual scenario where electricity production from Renewable Energy Sources is frozen at 2005 levels.
The overall methodological approach to the study is described in this report together with a short mathematical treatment of the calculation of life cycle indicators and subsequent scaling up to produce the two scenarios required to estimate gross avoided potential impacts. A short overview of data sources used in the study is included as well as a discussion and recommendations for the future.
ETC/CME
2020
Transboundary particulate matter, photo-oxidants, acidifying and eutrophying components
Meteorologisk institutt
2020