LF512 - Urban population exposed to PM10 concentrations (LUISA Platform REF2014)

Despite increasing emission controls, particulate matter (PM) has remained a critical issue for European air quality in recent years. The

various sources of PM, both from primary particulate emissions as well as secondary formation from precursor gases, make this a complex issue to tackle. In order to allow for credible predictions of future concentrations under policy assumptions, a modelling approach is needed that considers all chemical processes and spatial dimensions involved, from hemispheric background to local street canyons. Here we describe a modelling scheme which has been implemented in the GAINS integrated assessment model to assess compliance with PM10 limit values at individual air quality monitoring stations. The modelling approach relies on a combination of bottom up modelling of emissions, simplified atmospheric chemistry and dispersion calculations, and a traffic increment calculation wherever applicable. At each monitoring station fulfilling a few data coverage criteria, measured concentrations in the base year 2009 are explained to the extent possible and then modelled for the past and future. More than 1850 monitoring stations are covered, including more than 300 traffic stations and 80 % of the stations which violated the limit values in 2009. As a validation, we compare modelled trends in the period 2000–2008 to observations, which are well reproduced. The station modelling scheme is applied here to quantify explicitly source contributions to ambient concentrations at a subset of monitoring stations, and we undertake an outlook on the predicted evolution of PM10 concentrations until 2030 under different policy scenarios. Significant improvements in ambient PM10 concentrations are expected already under the assumption of successful implementation of already agreed legislation; however, these will not be large enough to ensure attainment of PM10 standards in hot spot locations such as Southern Poland and major European cities. Remaining issues are largely eliminated in a scenario applying to the maximal technically feasible extent the best available emission control technologies.

The Communication from the Commission on the Roadmap to Resource Efficient Europe (RERM) defines a set of milestones to illustrate what is required to put Europe on a path to resource efficiency and sustainable growth, thus contributing to a global economic transformation. The 2020 milestone for land is defined as "By 2020 […], the rate of land take is on track with an aim to achieve no net land take by 2050[…]". DG ENV and JRC are conducting a study aiming at assessing the level of effort needed in the EU in order to reach the land milestone set in the Resource Efficiency Roadmap. The study will also analyse environmental consequences of reaching (or not) the 2020 milestone. The study is divided into three parts, covering the following:  the progress towards reaching the 2020 milestone related to “being on track towards no net land take by 2050” in the EU27 (Part I);  the environmental consequences of the achievement of the 2020 land-take milestone (Part II);  the efficiency of land resources’ management in the past and in the future (Part III). This document presents the results of the Part I of the study. The methodological framework relies on an integrated modelling approach based on the Land-Use Modelling Platform (LUMP) . In this modeling platform, three land take

development scenarios are being developed and assessed.