Establishment of Air Quality Zones in Italy

Member States shall establish zones and
agglomerations throughout their territory to assess and manage air
quality in order to comply with European directives.
In Italy decree 155/2010, transposing Directive 2008/50/EC on
ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe, merged into a single
act the previous provisions on ambient air quality assessment and
management, including those resulting from the implementation of
Directive 2004/107/EC relating to arsenic, cadmium, nickel, mercury
and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air.
Decree 155/2010 introduced stricter rules for identifying zones on
the basis of the characteristics of the territory in spite of considering
pollution levels, as it was in the past. The implementation of such
new criteria has reduced the great variability of the previous zoning,
leading to a significant reduction of the total number of zones and to
a complete and uniform ambient air quality assessment and
management throughout the Country.
The present document is related to the new zones definition in
Italy according to Decree 155/2010. In particular the paper contains
the description and the analysis of the outcome of zoning and
classification.

• M. G. Dirodi
• G. Gugliotta
• C. Leonardi

• Zones
• agglomerations
• air quality assessment
• classification.

[1] Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.
[2] Directive 2004/107/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 15 December 2004 relating to arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air.
[3] Council Directive 96/62/EC of 27 September 1996 on ambient air
quality assessment and management.
[4] Legislative decree 4 agosto 1999, n. 351 “Attuazione della direttiva
96/62/CE in materia di valutazione e di gestione della qualità dell'aria
ambiente”
[5] Legislative decree 13 agosto 2010, n.155 "Attuazione della direttiva
2008/50/CE relativa alla qualità dell'aria ambiente e per un'aria più
pulita in Europa".