Assessment of the Effects of the Spanish National Air Pollution Control Programme on Air Quality

Abstract

During the last few decades, European legislation has driven progress in reducing air pollution in Europe through emission mitigation measures. In this paper, we use a chemistry transport model to assess the impact on ambient air quality of the measures considered for 2030 in the for the scenarios with existing (WEM2030) and additional measures (WAM2030). The study estimates a general improvement of air quality for the WAM2030 scenario, with no non-compliant air quality zones for NO₂, SO₂, and PM indicators. Despite an improvement for O₃, the model still estimates non-compliant areas. For this pollutant, the WAM2030 scenario leads to different impacts depending on the indicator considered. Although the model estimates a reduction in maximum hourly O₃ concentrations, small increases in O₃ concentrations in winter and nighttime in the summer lead to increases in the annual mean in some areas and increases in other indicators (SOMO35 for health impacts and AOT40 for impacts on vegetation) in some urban areas. The results suggest that the lower NO_x emissions in the WEM and WAM scenarios lead to less removal of O₃ by NO titration, especially background ozone in winter and both background and locally produced ozone in summer, in areas with high NO_x emissions.