Establishment of Air Quality Zones in Italy

Authors: M. G. Dirodi, G. Gugliotta, C. Leonardi

Abstract:

Member States shall establish zones and agglomerations throughout their territory to assess and manage air quality in order to comply with European directives. In Italy decree 155/2010, transposing Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe, merged into a single act the previous provisions on ambient air quality assessment and management, including those resulting from the implementation of Directive 2004/107/EC relating to arsenic, cadmium, nickel, mercury and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air. Decree 155/2010 introduced stricter rules for identifying zones on the basis of the characteristics of the territory in spite of considering pollution levels, as it was in the past. The implementation of such new criteria has reduced the great variability of the previous zoning, leading to a significant reduction of the total number of zones and to a complete and uniform ambient air quality assessment and management throughout the Country. The present document is related to the new zones definition in Italy according to Decree 155/2010. In particular the paper contains the description and the analysis of the outcome of zoning and classification.

Keywords: Zones, agglomerations, air quality assessment, classification.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1099210

References:

[1] Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.
[2] Directive 2004/107/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 2004 relating to arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air.
[3] Council Directive 96/62/EC of 27 September 1996 on ambient air quality assessment and management.
[4] Legislative decree 4 agosto 1999, n. 351 “Attuazione della direttiva 96/62/CE in materia di valutazione e di gestione della qualità dell'aria ambiente”
[5] Legislative decree 13 agosto 2010, n.155 "Attuazione della direttiva 2008/50/CE relativa alla qualità dell'aria ambiente e per un'aria più pulita in Europa".