3rd Year Week 7 MT03
Topic: How should we protect our environment?
NEWS RELEASE Copenhagen, 24 October 2003 The threshold was exceeded in at least one of the 23 countries on 137 of the 153 days monitored between April and August. Only the Nordic countries, the Baltic States and Ireland reported no exceedances. Breaches of the threshold lasted an average of 3.5 hours, the longest average period since 1995, with a high of 4.2 hours on average recorded in the Slovak Republic. The ozone concentration during the episodes averaged 202 µg/m3 in the 23 countries affected and reached an average of 246 µg/m3 in Romania.The number of hours during spring and summer when ozone concentrations at each monitoring station were above the 180 µg/m3 threshold averaged 31 for the EU, its highest number ever. In France the number was one-third higher than the previous record set nine years ago.The areas with the most exceedances of the threshold were south-west Germany, Switzerland, northern and south-eastern France, Belgium, northern and central Italy and central Spain.These are also among the regions with the highest density of emissions from traffic and industry of the main pollutants contributing to ozone.Under revised EU ozone legislation that took effect in September, the ozone concentration above which brief exposure is considered to pose a health risk for the general population has been tightened from 360µg/m3, averaged over one hour, to 240µg/m3.Governments are required to warn the general public to take precautions whenever the threshold is exceeded. The 360 µg/m3 threshold, which still applied this spring and summer, was breached four times - twice in mid-June, at stations in northern Italy (Varenna) and Romania (Chiciu), and twice in early August at one monitoring station in south-east France (Sausset les Pins). This number of exceedances is in line with previous years, despite this year’s hotter temperatures. The highest ozone concentration was 417 µg/m3, reached at Sausset les Pins during the heatwave that affected much of Europe in the first half of August.The new 240 µg/m3 threshold, which was not yet in force this summer, was exceeded in 15 countries and in around 6% of the episodes where the 180 µg/m3 information threshold was breached. |