1 Limitations of current air quality data in Europe? Frank de Leeuw Real time pollution data exchange and forecast in Europe Copenhagen, 7-8 April 2005

2 Limitations Cannot measure in the future Cannot redo measurements in the past

3 Are costs a limitation? Monitoring costs: 3000 stations Running costs k/a Investment cost 10 k/a total costs M about 0.50 per capita Emission control costs: 31.7 B (2000) B (2020)

4 Shortcomings Depends on: What Where When How accurate

5 What is (easily) available? On line European datasets: AIRBASE: all FWD-pollutants (& more); 2000 stations EMEP: S, N, Ox, POP, HM; 100 stations CAMP: N, POP, HM; 30 stations HELCOM: POP, HM (included in EMEP) Shortcoming: time lag of 15 – 27 months

6 What is where available?

7 Shortcoming re. spatial coverage: only landbased highly variable per country & pollutant

8 What is when available? Episodic data (situation 2003):

9 What is when available Long time series show gaps:

10 How accurate? Depends on assessments Spatial scale

11 How accurate? Depends on assessments Problems with detection limit vs target or effect level

12 How to solve shortcomings? Shorten time lag Submission deadline 1 April (now 1 October)? Fill gaps in time Recommend countries to submit historical data Fill gaps in space better reporting: not all stations report under the EoI improve information content of networks

13 How to solve shortcomings? Fill gaps in space: Interpolation techniques Co-kriging with model or satellite data Data assimilation or Kalman filtering

14 Conclusions: Are there limitations? Yes, two unavoidable limitations But also some shortcomings which can be remedied by Improving reporting cycle Optimalisation of networks Improve analytical methods New interpolation/assimilation techniques