Monitoring ambient air quality for health impact - WHO/Europe

216 Pages·2001·0.72 MB·English

85 WHO Regional Publications, European Series, No. 85
Monitoring ambient air quality
for health impact assessment
WHO Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Monitoring ambient air quality for health impact assessment
(WHO regional publications. European series ; No. 85)
1.Air pollution – prevention and control 2.Environmental monitoring
– methods 3.Risk assessment 4.Air pollutants – adverse effect
5.Quality control 6.Environmental exposure 7.Information systems
8.Europe I.Series
ISBN 92 890 1351 6 (NLM Classification: WA 754)
ISSN 0378-2255
Text editing: David Breuer
World Health Organization
Regional Office for Europe
Copenhagen
Monitoring ambient
air quality for
health impact assessment
WHO Regional Publications, European Series, No. 85
ISBN 92 890 1351 6
ISSN 0378-2255
The Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization wel-
comes requests for permission to reproduce or translate its publications,
in part or in full. Applications and enquiries should be addressed to the
Publications unit, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Scherfigsvej 8,
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark, which will be glad to provide the
latest information on any changes made to the text, plans for new edi-
tions, and reprints and translations already available.
©World Health Organization 1999
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World Health Organization.
Contents
Page
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Objectives and scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Structure of the publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Previous related activities of WHO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Information on air quality required
for health impact assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Otto Hänninen, Alexander Economopoulos & Halûk Özkaynak
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Air quality and health impact assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Relationship between information on air quality and exposure 16
Relevance of exposure to health effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Air quality and sources:
from assessment to management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. Design, operation and quality assurance and control
in a monitoring system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Jon Bower & Hans-Guido Mücke
The role of monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Objectives of monitoring and quality assurance and control . . 38
Role and functions of quality assurance and quality control . . 41
Network design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Instrumental issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
System review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
System operation: automatic networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
System operation: sampler networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Data management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Turning data into information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4. Strategies for monitoring selected pollutants . . . . . . . . 71
Carbon monoxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Päivi Aarnio, Tarja Koskentalo & Kari Hämekoski
Ozone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Ruth Baumann & Jürgen Schneider
Sulfur dioxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Bohumil Kotlik & Jon Bower
Nitrogen dioxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Jon Bower
Particulate matter (PM and PM ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
10 2.5
Michal Krzyzanowski
Benzene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Anne Lindskog
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Eva Brorström-Lundén
Lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Bohumil Kotlik
Atmospheric cadmium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Laszlo Bozó
5. Reporting and assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Dietrich Schwela & Michal Krzyzanowski
Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Formats for presenting information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Storing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6. Conclusions and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Annex 1. Major European activities related
to air quality assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Annex 1.1. Overview of the updated
WHO air quality guidelines for Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Rolaf van Leeuwen & Michal Krzyzanowski
Annex 1.2. European Union framework
directive and daughter directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Frank de Leeuw
Annex 2. General methods for emission inventories . . . . . . . . . 149
Alexander Economopoulos
Annex 3. Air quality modelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Annex 3.1. Dispersion models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Jaakko Kukkonen
Annex 3.2. Receptor modelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Juhani Ruuskanen
Annex 3.3. Statistical models of air quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
John Stedman
Annex 4. Personal exposure models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Halûk Özkaynak
Annex 5. WHO requirements for air quality indicators . . . . . . 181

Contributors
Editorial group
Jon Bower
Otto Hänninen
Bohumil Kotlik
Hans-Guido Mücke
Halûk Özkaynak
Stanislaw Tarkowski (Chairperson)
Michal Krzyzanowski (Scientific Secretary)
Members of the working group
(P = preparatory group, WG = working group)
Ruth Baumann, Federal Environment Agency, Vienna, Austria (WG)
Jon Bower, AEA Technology, Culham, United Kingdom (WG)
Laszlo Bozó, Institute for Atmospheric Physics, Budapest, Hungary (WG)
Sergei S. Chicherin, Federal Service of Russia for Hydrometeorology
and Monitoring Environment, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (WG)
Alexander Economopoulos, Technical University of Crete, Chania,
Greece (WG)
Paul Filliger, Swiss Agency for the Environment,
Forests and Landscape, Berne, Switzerland (WG)
Cagatay Güler, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey (WG)
Kari Hämekoski, Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council, Helsinki,
Finland (WG)
Otto Hänninen, KTL Environmental Health, Kuopio, Finland (P, WG)
Bohumil Kotlik, National Institute for Public Health, Prague,
Czech Republic (P, WG)
Steinar Larssen, Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU),
Kjeller, Norway (WG)
Frank de Leeuw, National Institute of Public Health and
the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands (Pa)
Anne Lindskog, Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL),
Gothenburg, Sweden (WG)
ix