Latest ETC Reports (included in homepage)

After 18 years of its implementation of the Environmental Noise Directive (END) (EU, 2002), trends between 2012 and 2017 suggest that the number of people exposed to levels of noise considered harmful to human health has not significantly been reduced. Achieving a reduction of the negative impacts of noise pollution is essential within the context of the EU Action Plan: 'Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil'. This report provides the compilation of a questionnaire sent to EIONET intending to identify the political, contextual, environmental, economic and societal challenges that countries, regions and cities face when planning and implementing measures for reducing the negative impacts of noise. About 147 answers have been provided covering 23 countries: 16 from EU27 and 23 from EEA38.

Trend calculations of air pollutants for the periods 2005-2019 have been applied. Sulphur dioxide shows the largest decrease of all pollutants with a reduction of the order of 60-70 %. The agreement between reported emission data and measured concentrations are quite good. For NO2, a mismatch between the trend in air concentrations and NOx emissions is found. While the overall NOx emissions are reported to be reduced by 45 %, the measured NO2 data indicate a decline of the order of 30 %. For PM data (PM10 and PM2.5) we find an opposite mismatch, meaning that the PM concentrations show stronger downward trends than the reported emissions. This can be explained by the additional effect of reducing gaseous precursors of secondary PM. For O3, our findings are in line with earlier published studies noting that the annual mean ozone concentration has increased while the high peaks have been reduced. But the reduction of the peaks is now within only a few percent and non-significant.

Nearby access to quiet spaces and to green spaces contributes to the health and well-being of local communities. This report assesses potential quiet areas in 145 agglomerations and their accessibility in a subset of 129 agglomerations partly covering the EEA-38 and the United Kingdom territory. The results highlight that quiet areas are the larger part of the city in most cities. In most cities, more than 50 % of the population lives in areas potentially quiet.