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BaP is a carcinogenic pollutant emitted mainly from the combustion of coal and wood for heating and, to a lesser extent, from industrial installations (EEA, 2025a). The highest concentrations were found in eastern Europe — where the use of coal and other solid fuels for residential heating is still prevalent — and in Italy — mainly due to the use of wood and wood derivatives for residential heating.
The EEA has received valid 2024 BaP data from all the EU-27 Member States (except Portugal) and from Norway and Switzerland. No BaP data are given here for 2025 because monitoring is based on manual sampling and therefore it is not included in the UTD or near-real time reporting, which relies on automatic sampling (see the EEA’s Annex — Methodological approaches).
The 2030 EU ALV for BaP has been set at 1.0 nanogram per cubic metre (ng/m3), while the current target value is 1ng/m3. In 2024, levels above 1.0ng/m3 were recorded at 20.2% of the reported stations. Most of them were either urban (76.3%) or suburban (19.4%). They were located in 12 Member States (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) as shown in Map 11 and Figure 10.
In addition to data collected from monitoring stations, countries can also use modelling applications to assess compliance with the standards. Poland reported BaP target value exceedances for 21 air quality zones, based on assessment models.