Airborne Pb concentrations in Europe
Airborne Pb concentrations in Europe
Teresa Moreno
Instituto de Diagnóstico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA, CSIC), teresa.moreno@idaea.csic.es
Lead is ahighly toxic element which causes a range of well documented negative health effects at low dose levels. Furthermore, there is no known threshold below which lead can be considered to be non-toxic, especially with regard to chronic health effects on the central nervous system, blood pressure, kidneys, and Vitamin D metabolism. Anthropogenic lead particles present in the atmosphere derive mostly from traffic andindustrial emissions such as steelworks, lead smelters, waste incinerators, cement production, and both industrial and domestic hydrocarbon (coal/oil/wood) combustion. The facility with which these fine anthropogenic metalliferous aerosols can be transported long distances in the atmosphere means that PbPM pollution is a European-wide challenge, with emissions from one country affecting many others. In order to control and reduce European emissions of atmospheric metalliferous PM, the 36 European countries that belong to the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) have signed a protocol specifically designed to reduce ambient heavy metal aerosol concentrations. Background levels of heavy metal PM are reported by means of data collected by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), and although average Pb aerosol regional background concentrations vary considerably across Europe, most European countries had managed to effect more than 90% reduction in Pb emissions between 1990 and 2005. Another important contributor to data on Pb aerosol concentrations in Europe is AirBase, a public air quality database system supplied by countries annually to the EEA (European Environment Agency) to establish a reciprocal exchange of ambient air pollution data within the EU Member
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