1. IMPROVING PUBLIC INFORMATION
Presentation at 20th EIONET Workshop on
Air Quality Assessment and Management
05 October 2015
Marta Munoz Cuesta
European Commission
DG ENV C.3
Air

2. OUTLINE
PUBLIC INFORMATION IN THE AQ DIRECTIVE AND IN THE POLICY PACKAGE
PUBLIC INFORMATION AND A HARMONIZED EU QUALITY INDEX
IMPROVING PUBLIC INFORMATION IN PLANS AND PROGRAMS 2

3. 1
PUBLIC INFORMATION:
GENERAL FRAMEWORK 3

4. THE CLEAN AIR POLICY PACKAGE
The CLEAN AIR PROGRAMME FOR EUROPE (2013) stresses the need to improve public information on air quality.
Further action in this field was stated as one of the short term objectives to help Member States in reaching the ambient air quality standards.

5. THE AMBIENT AIR QUALITY DIRECTIVE
ARTICLE 26 PUBLIC INFORMATION: “Member States shall ensure that the public as well as appropriate organisations such as environmental organisations, […] are informed, adequately and in good time, of the following:
(a) ambient air quality in accordance with Annex XVI;
[…]
(d) air quality plans [….]
The information shall be made available free of charge by means of any easily accessible media including the Internet or any other appropriate means of telecommunication, and shall take into account the provisions laid down in Directive 2007/2/EC.”
public information – taking into account the provisions of INSPIRE

6. 2
A HARMONIZED
EU AIR QUALITY INDEX 6

7. A HARMONIZED EU AIR QUALITY INDEX
To address the need to improve public information, DG ENV has initiated a project to develop a prototype of a harmonised EU Air Quality index for key pollutants.

8. A HARMONIZED EU AIR QUALITY INDEX
Project launched in December 2014 with the overall objective of developing a prototype EU Air Quality Index for key air pollutants.
Specific tasks:
Review existing provision within the EU and beyond.
Based on the findings, to formulate a methodology for establishing the relevant indices and for conveying this information to the public.
develop appropriate IT infrastructure for communicating the index or indices to the public.
Test and evaluation of the IT infrastructure

9. A HARMONIZED EU AIR QUALITY INDEX
Workshop on a Harmonized Air Quality Index for Europe held on 29 June 2015 in Brussels.
Aim of the workshop: discuss the benefits and difficulties of developing a common air quality index for Europe, and reach a consensus on the approach for its implementation.
A short questionnaire was circulated with the invitations: responses were used to inform and direct the workshop.
Minutes distributed in July to the AAQ EG and participants.

10. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION DURING THE WORKSHOP
identification of the pollutants to include and whether to have an overall indicator or
individual indicators for each pollutant;
geographic region(s) to be covered by the indicator, (e.g. site, zone, agglomeration);
timescale(s) for indicator, (e.g. hourly, daily, annual);
metrics/averaging periods for each pollutant;
numbers, naming and colours on the index scale;
thresholds for each index value and health advice associated with each;
early warning index / use of triggers;
discussion of other considerations, concerns and questions.

11. MAIN OUTCOMES OF THE WORKSHOP
The main target group: focus on citizens mainly.
The AQI will need to be linked to clear health advice.
Pollutants: there was a unanimous consensus for NO2, O3, and PM10. Lots of support for including PM2.5 (or, PM10 or PM2.5, whichever is the worst). Any other pollutants won’t be part of core but will be available as pollutant-specific index only, in countries where relevant.
The problem of stations not monitoring every pollutant: may be able to ‘fill in gaps’ using modelled data – especially for PM2.5, e.g. from Copernicus.

12. NEXT STEP
The results of the test phase of the AQ Index to be presented during the next AAQ Expert Group on 24 November 2015.

13. IMPROVING PUBLIC INFORMATION IN PLANS AND PROGRAMMES3
IMPROVING PUBLIC INFORMATION
IN PLANS AND PROGRAMMES 13

14. WORKSHOP ON E-REPORTING
Workshop on e-Reporting held on 29 June 2015 in Brussels.
The workshop focused on discussions on the datasets H-K of the Implementing Decision laying down rules for Directives 2004/107/EC and 2008/50/EC.
Discussions provided opportunities to share best practices and clarify the technical and other questions related to the implementation of e-reporting.

15. TECHNICAL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Document on Questions & Answers on e-reporting was handed out during the meeting to all participants.
Electronic version of Document on Questions & Answers on e-reporting circulated after the meeting
Consolidated version of the document (including new answers to questions received after the meeting) shared with the participants on 31 July 2015 ( ).

16. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ON E-REPORTING
Types of questions (NON-EXHAUSTIVE):
1. Guidance and definitions of concepts
Reporting updates of existing Plans and Programmes
e-reporting xml & data model, e.g.:
Parent/Macro exceedance/Micro exceedance situations
Reporting year/period; reference year; year of first exceedance
Identifiers (LocalID)
2. Requests for changes
Updates of codelists
Changes of existing schema
3. Use and functionality of the P&P e-reporting solution
Graphical User Interface, e.g.: conditional fields, size of tooltips
How-to use of the solution for e-reporting, e.g.: filtering, user management

17. WORKSHOP ON E-REPORTING
Document on Questions & Answers on e-reporting:
Living document
MSs will still have the chance to discuss with the Commission questions of different nature on e-reporting during the next AAQ Expert Group (24 November 2015).

18. More Information Thank you!
Feedback
Thank you!
European Commission
DG ENV C.3
Air