Development of a Policy Tool towards Particulate Pollution Abatement

Session F4: Interaction Design for Environmental Information Systems

Particulate matter concentrations are in most cities a major environmental problem. This is also the case in Greece where, despite the various measures taken in the past, the problem still persists. In this aspect, in the framework of the European Life Programme ACEPTAIR, a cost efficient, comprehensive policy tool was developed in order to help decision makers to take the most appropriate measures towards particulates pollution abatement. In the framework of the project, the tool was applied for the areas of three major Greek cities. The operational platform consists of two modules, a database and an algorithm for the calculation of particulate levels for different emissions scenaria. The database comprises historical measurements data, the corresponding emissions data from all sources as well as source apportionment data. In the second module, the algorithm can be applied in order to forecast particulate levels taking into account various reduction measures or the business as usual scenario. The tool can be used for future or past conditions giving thus the possibility to the decision makers to evaluate ex ante or ex post the effectiveness of specific abatement measures. Moreover, the ex post evaluation is useful for testing and validation reasons. Finally, the tool is user friendly and it can be easily updated when new input data are available.