A new air quality city ranking shows that millions of European citizens, especially in the south of the bloc, are exposed to unsafe levels of pollution. The new interactive dataset and air quality viewer from the European Environment Agency (EEA) rates cities from the cleanest to the most polluted, based on their long-term respective levels of fine particulate matter – a pollutant that over time causes disease and premature mortality.
Air quality is worst in southern and eastern Europe
Out of 375 cities scrutinised, the worst for fine particulate matter or PM2.5 pollution were in southern and eastern Europe. Nowy Sacz, in southern Poland, was ranked second most-polluted city in the list, though it just succeeded in skirting below the EU exposure guidelines. Italy brings up the rear of the list, with Cremona, Vicenza, Padova, Venezia and Piacenza.
But worst of all is Slavonski Brod, in Croatia, which has air classed as “very poor”, with the highest PM2.5 pollution levels at 26.5 μg/m3. That’s 1.5 μg/m3 above the European Union’s 25 μg/m3 annual limit for long-term exposure, and five times the more recent and stricter 5 μg/m3 World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline.
Where is the cleanest air?
As few as 13 European cities spread across just six European countries, all but one of which in the north of the bloc, managed to keep within that WHO limit and achieve “good” quality air. Citizens in Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Norway are breathing some of Europe’s best quality air containing the least fine particulates, according to the figures.
Swedes in the northern cities of Uppsala and Umeå have the cleanest air, according to the EEA data, but in an outlying result, we have to swoop south to Faro in Portugal, recognised in third place. Back north and Reykjavik, in Iceland, and Oulu, in Finland, came fourth and fifth for best air quality.
How is it measured and why?
The study works with the daily means for ground level pollution at 500 urban and suburban background stations over the past calendar year and the year before last, using EEA ‘up-to-date’ air quality data (E2a). Removing what it calls “unrealistic” results above 1000 ug/m3, the agency, finds the averages.
As well as allowing citizens to see their cities’ potential effect on their health, the data will feed into discussions on the European Green Deal’s zero pollution action plan which intends to elimate long-term health impacts from air pollution by 2050, and targets a 55% reduction in premature deaths from fine particulate matter by 2030 (from 2005). As part of the effort, new standards for air quality (the Ambient Air Quality Directives), focusing on 12 air pollutants, are in the EU pipeline.
