RT Journal Article
T1 Application of a short term air quality action plan in Madrid (Spain) under a high-pollution episode - Part I: Diagnostic and analysis from observations
A1 Borge, Rafael
A1 Artíñano, Begoña
A1 Yagüe Anguis, Carlos
A1 Gómez Moreno, Francisco Javier
A1 Saiz López, Alfonso
A1 Sastre Marugán, Mariano
A1 Narros, Adolfo
A1 García Nieto, David
A1 Benavent, Nuria
A1 Maqueda Burgos, Gregorio
A1 Barreiro, Marcos
A1 De Andrés, Juan Manuel
A1 Cristóbal, Ángeles
AB Exceedances of NO2 hourly limit value (200 mu g.m(-3)) imply the need to implement short term action plans to avoid adverse effects on human health in urban areas. The Madrid City Council applied the stage 3 of the NO2 protocol during a high-pollution episode under stable meteorological conditions on December 2016 for the first time. This included road traffic access restrictions to the city centre (50% of conventional private vehicles based on plate numbers). In this contribution we analyse different meteorological and air quality observations, including non-standard parameters (such as number of ultrafine particles and remote sensing techniques MAXDOAS) for a better understanding of the effectivity of short-term emission abatement measures under real conditions and to identify options to improve the NO2 protocol in the future. According to our results, the inversion base height computed from vertical temperature soundings is a meaningful index to anticipate very unfavourable conditions and trigger the actions included in the protocol. The analysis of the concentration levels of the main pollutants from the Madrid air quality monitoring network indicate that only stage 3 of the protocol had a significant effect on NO2 maximum concentrations. The restrictions applied may have prevented NO2 concentrations to further increase in the city centre (up to 15%) although pollution levels in the city outskirts, outside the area directly affected by the traffic restrictions, remained unchanged or may have been slightly increased. Nonetheless, further studies are needed to estimate more precisely the effect of the measures taken and to assess potential trade-offs. Our results suggest that emissions play an important role also under very strong stability conditions although drastic measures are needed to achieve a significant impact. This highlights the importance of an appropriate timing for short-term actions and the need of permanent abatement measures related to air quality plans and policies. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/93326
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/93326
LA eng
NO Rafael Borge, Begoña Artíñano, Carlos Yagüe, Francisco Javier Gomez-Moreno, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez, Mariano Sastre, Adolfo Narros, David García-Nieto, Nuria Benavent, Gregorio Maqueda, Marcos Barreiro, Juan Manuel de Andrés, Ángeles Cristóbal, Application of a short term air quality action plan in Madrid (Spain) under a high-pollution episode - Part I: Diagnostic and analysis from observations, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 635, 2018, Pages 1561-1573, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.149.
NO Ayuntamiento de Madrid
DS Docta Complutense
RD 1 ene 2026