Analysis of air pollution trends in Italy (2003 – 2012)
The main objective of this study was to assess the air pollution temporal trend in Italy, 2003 trough 2012, focusing on airborne mass concentration of selected pollutants: particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, ozone. Time series analysis using Seasonal Kendall test has been applied.
This study shows for the first time in Italy a nation wide quantitative assessment of trends.
During the study period, the concentration of primary gaseous pollutants co, C6H6 and NOX declined considerably and widely across Italy, according to the large road transport related emissions reductions. A statistically significant moderate decreasing trend was found in the majority of the PM10, PM2.5 and NO2 time series, though some exceptions should be investigated locally. Any downward trend was found in the large majority of ozone time series. This could be explained by the complexity of ground level atmospheric formation/depletion mechanism that seems to be not linearly dependent on precursor emission reduction.
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