Air quality is one of the major environmental problems in all countries, and in particular urban agglomerations, of the community. Compliance with the air quality target levels and standards as defined in 2008/50/EC considers natural (and thus difficult to control) sources of pollutants as well as long-range, trans-boundary transport of pollutants. Ozone and particulates (PM10 and increasingly PM2.5 are among the main substances of concern with the most frequent exceedances of the target and threshold values and subsequent public health impacts.

While 2008/50/EC explicitly refers to road-salting, as well as trans-boundary pollutant transport from candidate countries to be considered in the assessment of air quality status and compliance, these concepts are not fully applicable to the countries and regions of Southern Europe and in particular Cyprus with its extreme South-Eastern location and Mediterranean climate.

For Mediterranean and Balkan countries and Cyprus in particular, due consideration must be given to long-range transport from Northern Africa and the Eastern shore zones of the Mediterranean (Lelieveld et al., (2002) and thus geographic extensions to the current EMEP data coverage), but also the consideration of a semi-arid climate zone with dry summers and in part sparse vegetation (as well as a large number of open cast mining activities), and thus open soils, conducive to wind entrainment of dust.

In Cyprus, air quality improvements have been achieved regarding the major air pollutants with the exception of particulate matter. Given the heterogeneity of pollutant sources, the large relative contribution of natural sources as well as the potentially significant contribution from regional transboundary transport, preparing measures and controls presents numerous complexities and difficulties. Source attribution is an especially important issue, as it is necessary in order to prepare targeted dust management measures. Further, accurate estimates of the relative contributions of transboundary and local natural sources need to be made in order to be able to prescribe realistic PM reduction targets.

 

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