2005:2012 AIR QUALITY IN APULIAN URBAN AREAS Extended abstract

Apulia is a 19,362 km region in the south-east of Italy developing about 800 km of coastline, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea in the northeast and by the Ionian Sea in the south. Its territory is quite low with mountains only per 1.5 %, level ground per 54 % and hills per 44 %. It is divided into six provinces: Bari, Brindisi, Lecce, Foggia, Taranto and Bat (Barletta, Andria, Trani), the latest one including ten Municipalities. Two relevant industrial areas (Brindisi and Taranto) and several cities of medium-large dimension characterize the territory. Bari is the capital of the Region and its most populated town, with over 300,000 inhabitants. Its urban centre is characterized by high vehicular traffic, while in its industrial area activities in the mechanical sector take place. Lecce and Foggia are service industry towns, with small artisan areas. Due to the numerous and high impact industrial activities (steel production, metallurgical, chemical, petrochemical, cement – producing and coal power plants), Taranto and Brindisi are included in the so called areas at high risk of environmental crisis of the Region. In particular, Taranto hosts a heavy industrial district unfavorably positioned towards nearby residential areas, including the largest steel factory in Europe (ILVA), an oil refinery (ENI) and a kiln factory (CEMENTIR). At the aim of improving air quality, during the last decade European emission mitigation policies have been following a multi pollutant approach implementing various legal instruments. Also at regional level, air quality strategies were actuated to ensure good life quality to citizen, especially the ones living close to industrial areas and exposed to pollutants high levels. The aim of this paper is to evaluate pollutants concentration from 2005 to 2012 in Apulian urban areas, in order to estimate PM10, benzene and dioxide nitrogen trends and efficiency of environmental regional policies. In industrial area of Taranto, special attention will be turned to benzo (a) pyrene. It must be pointed out that trend detection can be considered a key aspect of understanding the state of air quality on the basis of past data (Blanchard, 1999; Klemm and Lange, 1999). It also aids the development of air pollution control policy and provides a reference for making further evaluations. Exposure to pollutants such as benzene, nitrogen dioxides and particulate matter is associated with increased mortality and hospital admissions due to health outcomes such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (Pope and Dockery, 2006). Benzo (a) pirene is classified in Group 1 by IARC as carcinogenic for human; cancers associated with exposure to PAHs containing mixtures in humans were predominantly lung and skin cancers, following inhalation and dermal exposure, respectively (USEPA, 2010). The pollution criticals of particular sites in Apulia Region were already evaluated in some other studies; Amodio et al. (2008) performed a statistical analysis on Taranto city highlighting an important contribution of industrial facilities on the air quality, especially in terms of concentrations of micro pollutants such as PAHs and metals. Caselli (Caselli et al., 2010) evaluated BTEX pollution in urban areas of Bari, confirming the presence of a single source, the vehicular traffic, having a strong impact on air quality. Mangia et al. (2011) analyzed sixteen years of air quality data (NO2, SO2 and TPS) in Brindisi area, revealing the influence of industrial area and of harbor on pollution levels and high correlation between pollution levels and wind blowing from eastern sectors.