Fifty years air pollution research and policy in the EU

Abstract

Despite the fact that air pollution has been observed since Roman times, and thatin past centuries some limited, rather local actions have already been taken, it required several air pollution episodes with serious health impacts before air pollution management really started in a limited number of cities, regions or countries. A noteworthy example is the famous London smog episode in 1952 that triggered a systematic approach locally and in some other European countries. Based on an "air pollution system" approach, some major evolutions and achievements in the EU are highlighted in this paper for the following subsystems: emissions, immissions, air quality guidelines/standards and modelling. © 2007 WIT Press.