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Introduction
Before the implementation of the EU Directives on air
quality, the Italian Environment Ministry published a decree (DM 04.21.1999 n.
163, “Identification of sanitary and environmental criteria for circulation
limitation measures adopted by the Mayor”) aimed at determining basic criteria
on the grounds of which Mayors can adopt car traffic limitation measures in
urban areas, whenever such measures are considered effective for air quality
improvement.
The environmental and sanitary criteria that the municipal
authority can use as a basis for possible measures for traffic control, are characterized
by an overall evaluation of the urban atmospheric environment. This obliges the
City of Venice to draft an Annual Report on air quality, using the
technical support of the Authorities involved in public health and environment
protection. With the implementation of the EU Directives, the ministerial
decree has been partially repealed, in fact there is actually no obligation for
Municipalities to
draft this kind of report, even though
many administrations keep doing it on a voluntary basis.
Following the new procedures introduced by the Daughter
Directives, the regular evaluation and the consequent regional territory zoning
based on air quality has become a duty of the Veneto Region Authority.
It is however the Mayor’s obligation to look at car
traffic control measures in urban areas, differentiated on the basis of the
type of pollutant presenting quality objective or attention level exceedances.
The possible measures provided for by legislation in urban
areas are the following:
- preventive traffic prohibition for
all vehicles with less that an annual control on emissions;
- traffic limitation for spark
ignition vehicles in urban zones where mobile emission sources contribute to
the atmospheric dispersed benzene annual average value exceedence of 10 μg/m3;
- traffic limitation for all types
of vehicles in urban zones where mobile emission sources contribute to the
atmospheric benzo(a)pyrene
annual average value exceedence of 1 ng/m3;
- traffic limitation for spontaneous
ignition vehicles in urban zones where mobile emission sources contribute to PM10
annual average value exceedence of 40 μg/m3.
The Air Quality
Assessment structure underlying the report
The Annual Report, prepared in following the National
Decree n. 163/99, aims at describing, on the basis of all the suitable
information on the City of Venice territory, the atmospheric environmental
quality situation of the previous year and planning measures to be adopted to
reduce pollution levels in urban air to achieve an improvement in citizens’
quality of life.
The report is therefore structured following the PSR
scheme (Pressures, State, Responses), with a brief
introduction that contextualises the evaluation:
- Introduction: reference guidelines, formed by:
o
legislation
on atmospheric pollution control (EU legislation, country legislation);
o
territorial
framework (ARPAV air quality monitoring network, regular measurement
campaigns);
o
the characterization of atmospheric pollutants and health effects.
- Pressures: emission sources
characterization:
o
industrial
sources classification at the provincial level;
o
car traffic emission estimations (following the COPERT 3 methodology).
- State: air quality characterization of
the reference year:
o
Meteorological
data analysis and relative historical series (compass rose, atmospheric
stability classes, cold/hot semester meteorological classification);
o
database used (fix survey network and relative efficiency, mobile
laboratories, passive samplers, etc.)
o
air
quality analysis (sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX),
carbon monoxide (CO), PM (TSP and PM10), ozone (O3),
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), benzene (C6H6),
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), heavy metals annual data);
o
temporal
statistical analysis (historical trends);
o
spatial
statistical analysis (spatial correlations);
o
critical and chronic pollution situations check (legislative limit
values comparison).
- Responses: Municipal Authority intervention
lines characterization.
See the
full text report (in Italian language): http://www.ambiente.venezia.it/aria.asp?sub=delibere |