The majority of atmospheric pollution moves over great distances, crossing national borders. The deposition of harmful compounds may even be global.

Większość zanieczyszczeń atmosferycznych przemieszcza się na duże odległości, przekraczając granice państw. Depozycja szkodliwych związków może mieć nawet charakter globalny.

Fine particulate matter ( PM) air pollution is one of the main environmental health problems in developed countries. According to modeling estimates the PM,, concentrations in Poland arc among the highest in Europe. In this article we focus on exposure assessment and estimation of adverse health effects due to PM, air pollution. This art i ck consists of two parts. The first part, we discuss the main methods used to estimate emission-exposure relationships and adverse health effects due to PM, air pollution. In the second part, we present an assessment framwork for Poland. We illustrate this framework by estimating the premature deaths and change in life expectancy in Poland caused by anthropogenic. primary PM,, emissions from different European countries, and, in proportion. the premature deaths in different European countries caused by primary PM,, emissions from Poland. The PM,, emissions were evaluated using the inventory of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP). The emission-exposure relationships were based on the previously published study and the exposure-response functions for PM,, air pollution were estimated in expert elicitation study performed lor six European experts on air pollution health effects. Based on the assessment. the anthropogenic primary PM, from the whole or Europe is estimated to cause several thousands of premature deaths in Poland, annually. These premature deaths arc both due to PM, emissions from Poland and transportation of PM,, from other European countries. both of these in almost equal parts. The framework presented in this article will be developed in the near future to a full scale integrated assessment. that takes into account both gaseous and PM air pollution.

Air quality in Warsaw is mainly affected by two classes of internal polluting sources: transportation and municipal sector emissions, apart from external pollution inflow. Warsaw authorities prepared strategies of mitigating emissions coming from both these sectors. In this study we analyze effects of the implementation of these strategies by modeling air pollution in Warsaw using several mitigation scenarios. The applied model, operating on a homogeneous discretization grid, forecasts the annual average concentrations of individual pollutants and the related population health risk. The results reveal that the measures planned by the authorities will cause almost 50% reduction of the residents’ exposure to NOx pollution and almost 23% reduction of the exposure to CO pollution due to the transport emissions, while the residents’ exposure reductions due to the municipal sector are 10% for PM10, 15% for PM2.5, and 26% for BaP. The relatively smaller reductions due to municipal sector are connected with high transboundary inflow of pollutants (38% for PM10, 45% for PM2.5, 36% for BaP, and 45% for CO). The implementation of the discussed strategies will reduce the annual mean concentrations of NOx and PM2.5 below the limits of the Ambient Air Quality Directive. Despite the lower exposure reduction, the abatement of municipal sector emissions results in a very significant reduction in health risks, in particular, in the attributable mortality and the DALY index. This is due to the dominant share of municipal pollution (PM2.5 in particular) in the related health effects.

The paper investigates the air quality in the urban area of Warsaw, Poland. Calculations are carried out using the emissions and meteorological data from the year 2012. The modeling tool is the regional CALMET/CALPUFF system, which is used to link the emission sources with the distributions of the annual mean concentrations. Several types of polluting species that characterize the urban atmospheric environment, like PM10, PM2.5, NOx, SO2, Pb, B(a)P, are included in the analysis. The goal of the analysis is to identify the most polluted districts and polluting compounds there, to check where the concentration limits of particular pollutants are exceeded. Then, emission sources (or emission categories) which are mainly responsible for violation of air quality standards and increase the adverse health effects, are identified. The modeling results show how the major emission sources – the energy sector, industry, traffic and the municipal sector – relate to the concentrations calculated in receptor points, including the contribution of the transboundary inflow. The results allow to identify districts where the concentration limits are exceeded and action plans are needed. A quantitative source apportionment shows the emission sources which are mainly responsible for the violation of air quality standards. It is shown that the road transport and the municipal sector are the emission classes which substantially affect air quality in Warsaw. Also transboundary inflow contributes highly to concentrations of some pollutants. The results presented can be of use in analyzing emission reduction policies for the city, as a part of an integrated modeling system.