Inventory and effectiveness of measures to improve air quality / by Volker Diegmann, Florian Pfäfflin, Heike Wursthorn (IVU Umwelt GmbH, Freiburg) ; on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency (Germany) ; study performed by: IVU Umwelt GmbH ; edited by: Section II 4.2 Air Quality Assessment Arno Graff

Abstract

This report contains a description and analysis of 242 air quality plans (AQPs) and action plans published in Germany up to 30.11.2012. These plans offer an extensive overview of the current situation in Germany regarding air quality, different methodologies of assessment and proposed measures to improve air quality. A detailed schema for classifying the measures has been used to register and analyse all plans, which contain 2588 measures. To ensure comparability, the measures were further classified into a set of 130 standardised measures, representing all measures in German AQPs. As plans and measures have been developed and implemented in Germany over a longer period of time, the available evaluation studies carried out after the implementation of the respective measures have been surveyed. Additionally, the theoretical reduction potentials for two types of measures concerning road traffic were analysed and, for low emission zones (LEZs), compared with published evaluations. The feasibility and complexity of assessing the isolated effect of a measure is discussed using LEZs as an example. Finally, an approach of the EU-Project APPRAISAL for consolidating and assessing AQPs has been applied to eleven German AQPs.