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Environmental information systems
Summary of international monitoring programmes in Europe
The international monitoring programmes listed in Chapter 2.2 are described in Chapter 3.4 below. Table 3.4 gives a summary of the monitoring activities in these programmes.
Except for GEMS/AIR, which involves urban pollution, these programmes exclusively deal with regional and global air pollution problems. A large number of stations are involved in these programmes. Many of the stations are in operation under several of the programmes in parallel.
The compounds include S- and N-compounds, ozone, metals, and other trace gases. Table 3.5 shows which compounds are covered by which programmes.
Table 3.4: Summary of recent monitoring activities in Europe in international programmes.
For all programmes: Not all compounds are measured at all sites.
| Programme | Sites | Countries | Compounds (summary) |
| EMEP (1995) | 126 | 28 | S- and N-compounds in air (gases and particles) and precipitation, and O3 and VOC in air. |
| OSPAR (1994) | |||
| Precip. | 25 | 10 | Cd, Hg, NO3, NH4, (priority) As, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, organo-halogens (grey list) |
| Aerosol/gas | 12 | 6 | Cd, Hg, a-HCN, g-HCN, HNO3, NO3, NO2, NO, NH3, NH4 (priority) As, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn (grey list) |
| HELCOM | 31 | 8 | N compounds in air (gases and particles), and in precipitation. Metals (Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn) in airborne particles and in precipitation. Cr, Ni, As, Hg in precipitation. |
| MEDPOL | 13 | 10 | Emphasis on heavy metals in aerosol, and heavy metals and major ions in precipitation. |
| GAW | 61 | 23 | Precipitation chemistry. |
| 100 | 29 | "Trace gases": O3 (81), NOx (43), SO2 (34), CO2 (20), CH4 (7), N2O (3), CFCs (4). | |
| 42 | 19 | Aerosols | |
| 16 | 5 | Radiation | |
| 14 | 10 | Turbidity | |
| TOR (1994) | 29 | O3, NO, NO2, NOy, CH4, CO, NMHC, JNO2, met.data. | |
| GEMS/AIR (1993/94) | 9 | 9 | SO2, SPM |
Table 3.5: Compound coverage in the international monitoring programmes.
| EMEP | OSPAR | HELCOM | MEDPOL | GAW | TOR | GEMS/AIR | |
| S compounds | air | precip. | SO2 | air (SO2) | |||
| N compounds | air | air | air | precip | NOx, N2O | air | |
| Metals | air | air | aerosol | ||||
| Ozone | x | x | x | ||||
| Organo-halogens | x | ||||||
| CO2 | x | ||||||
| CO | x | ||||||
| CH4 | x | x | |||||
| VOC | x | x | |||||
| CFC | x | ||||||
| "Aerosols", | | TSP |
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