Position Paper on Mercury
The Technical Report of the European Air Quality Directive on Mercury
Categorie: Cambiamenti e Transizione | Concluso | Internazionali | Montelibretti | Trasferimento delle conoscenze
Keywords: ambiente | Mercurio
Finanziamento: European Commission-DG Environment
Periodo: ---
Budget totale progetto:---
Budget totale CNR IIA:---
Responsabile Scientifico: Nicola Pirrone

Abstract del progetto

The Position Paper on Mercury is a Technical Report prepared by a number of experts nominated by Member States and the European Commission-DG Environment as part of the “Working Group on Mercury”. It will be the scientific background of the new European Air Quality Directive on Mercury . It fulfils the requirement of the Council Directive on Ambient Air Quality Assessment and Management, better known as the Framework Directive (FD) (Council Directive, 1996) and it is aimed to support the preparation of the Daughter Directives (DD) as reported in Art. 2 of the FD. The Position Paper (PP) on mercury is based on state-of-the-art knowledge of European sources (natural and anthropogenic) and major processes/mechanisms that influence the cycle of mercury in Europe and in the global environment, and ultimately its impact on human health, following the requirement of an integrated approach to the protection of air, water and soil ecosystems as dictated in Art. 7.2 of the FD.

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The Position Paper on Mercury is structured in seven chapters that report on natural and anthropogenic emissions of mercury on local and regional scales in Europe (Chapter-2) and provides an overview of Best Available Technology (BAT) that can be used to reduce the emission to the atmosphere (Chapter-7). An introduction on major issues related to mercury pollution in Europe and its impact on human health and the environment is reported in Chapter-1. A detailed presentation of major chemical and physical processes involved in the dynamic of mercury in the atmosphere and modeling techniques currently available in Europe to assess spatial and temporal patterns of ambient concentrations and deposition fluxes are discussed in Chapter-3, whereas monitoring and analytical techniques along with ambient concentration data currently available for gaseous and particulate mercury observed at industrial, urban and rural areas in Europe are presented in Chapter-4.

Detailed information on major exposure patterns to elemental mercury and mercury compounds (organic and inorganic) are discussed in Chapter-5 , whereas Chapter-6 reports on the risk associated to mercury exposure for major population groups in Europe. The Position Paper on Mercury has been approved by the Steering Board of the Clean Air For Europe (CAFE) -DG Environment during its session held in Brussels on 8-9 October 2001 and it is now available on the European Commission-DG Environment official web site as reported above
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CNR-Institute for Atmospheric Pollution (CNR-IIA) – ITALY – COORDINATORE
Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) – SWEDEN
Department of Occupational Medicine – Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset – SWEDEN
Landesamt für Umweltschutz Sachsen-Anhalt – GERMANY
GKSS-Research Centre – Institute of Hydrophysics – Model Systems Unit (GMS) – GERMANY
Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
Instituto de Salud Carlos III – SPAIN
University of Aarhus – DENMARK
Institute of Public Health – DENMARK
Department of Environmental Sciences – Jozef Stefan Institute
EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT BUREAU (EEB)
EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (EEA) – Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) – NORWAY
JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE (JRC)
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO) – Unit of Environmental Cancer Epidemiology
International Agency for Research on Cancer
EUROPEAN COMMISSION-DG ENVIRONMEN

Nicola Pirrone