Objective
COST 615 Action "Database, Monitoring and Modelling of Urban Air Pollution" forms, together with COST 616, COST 617 and COST 618, the COST CITAIR Programme "Science and Research for Better Air in European Cities". COST 615 has following objectives:
to develop a sound base for the assessment and documentation of air quality in urban areas, taking account of various pollution sources, and of improvements due to measures taken,
to achieve an international comparison of the pollution causes and conditions under which the air is being polluted in urban areas and to promote the standards for data quality and harmonisation of monitoring methods and modelling,
to further develop methods for fulfilling specific monitoring and modelling needs,
to achieve a better knowledge of the physical and chemical processes responsible for the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of primary and secondary pollutants,
to facilitate the assessment of the extent to which the urban air pollution is responsible for environmental changes at larger and global scale,
to provide an internationally accepted structure and methodology of local air pollution information systems, dealing with long-term exposures as well as with short 'episodes' and with 'alert' situations requiring immediate action,
to support policy (e.g. EC-framework directives, national legislation and action programmes, as well as concrete European and national air pollution abatement measures) by providing scientific and technical advice to actors and decision makers at various air pollution control and intervention levels.
Current status
16 COST member states (Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Sweden and the UK) participate in the Action. No institutes from non-member states of COST participate so far in the Action, but a request has been submitted by SIAT (Informatical Systems for Automation) Bucharest. The COST 615 Management Committee divided the responsibilities and tasks within the three following working groups:
Working Group 1: Database(s) of Urban Air Pollution
Working Group 2: Monitoring of Urban Air Pollution
Working Group 3: Modelling of Urban Air Pollution
Work planned
Concerning the activities in the final phase of the Action, the COST 615 Management Committee sees a necessity to finalise the work within the three COST 615 working groups and to strengthen the function of the COST 615 Action as a platform of scientific support and backing to various activities of the European Environmental Agency and the Urban Air Quality Topic Centre (Bilthoven).
Additional future efforts are also necessary and foreseen in connection with several tasks mentioned explicitly in the COST 615 MoU. Special attention will be paid to the question of applicability (models, databases) and to needs of local authorities in connection with all three working groups of COST 615, since these aspects are important indicators of the quality of the work and the added-value it offers, when the Action is to be distinguished from other research projects and programmes
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Call for proposal
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8022 Zürich
Switzerland