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THE AIR QUALITY IN KRAKOW.
POLISH-AMERICAN COLLABORATION

Ekaterina Batchvarova, Ekaterina.Batchvarova@meteo.bg

Under the Support for Eastern European Democracy (SEED) Act of 1989, the United States provided EPA with $1 million to establish an air quality network in Krakow, Poland (I phase) and to introduce additional tools to better understand and estimate the air pollution.

In spring 1991, a shipment of 20 tons 0f U.S. air monitoring equipment reached Krakow. EPA and Polish specialists worked together to design, set up and test for 2 months a state-of-the-art, automated, ambient air quality monitoring network in Krakow. The seven-station monitoring network was officially commissioned in November 1991 by a ceremony attended by officials from United States and Poland.

The concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particles, ozone and heavy metals are measured at the seven stationary stations. In addition a mobile air-monitoring unit is providing information at other parts of the city. The information is widely presented for the public through media, reports, education and electronic display board at the main square of Krakow.

The second phase of the project was to support the air-quality decision-making in Krakow through the use of improved data and appropriate set of EPA modeling tools, among which the CalPuff model.

The system was further developed recently with respect of the pollution from mobile sources such as non-methane organics and volatile organic components. More ozone and fine particles PM2.5 measuring sites were made.

In connection with the modeling activities a great effort was made to assess accurately the emissions from various sources in the area.

Finally a Krakow Air Quality Conference was organized 6-7 November 2000 to widely share the experience and present the results from a 12-year collaboration with other cities in Poland and other countries in the region.

Many experts from EPA and Krakow were involved in this collaboration. The work of all of them was officially recognized by the Voivodship of Krakow and the USA Consul in Krakow. The result of their work is felt by Krakow's population and visitors as a definite improvement of the air quality in the city was achieved.

Some of the people that devoted a lot of their time to this project you can contact at:

       
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