Assessing Urban Air Quality: The State-of-the-Art

The SATURN project aimed at a better understanding of urban air pollution as a prerequisite for finding effective solutions to air quality problems and for a sustainable development in the urban environment. The results of this project, which was concluded at the end of 2002, constitute a significant improvement of the state-of-the-art in the science of urban air pollution: • Field experiments led to a better insight into the characteristics of air pollution at the urban and local scales. Particular emphasis was put into studies of urban aerosols. • Urban scale air pollution models were considerably improved in SATURN. Efficient interfaces were developed for linking such models to suitable regional scale models. • Within the model evaluation framework, validation and intercomparison activities were shown to be convenient approaches for gradually and systematically testing model performance. • Both the concept and the application range of local scale air flow and dispersion models progressed significantly. Scientific research in SATURN led also to valuable new insight regarding local scale model pollution. Knowledge and tools acquired in the framework of SATURN were integrated in order to make them directly suitable for applications related to environmental policy and to support urban air quality management.