Photo-oxidants, Acidification And Tools: PolicyApplications Of EUROTRAC Results

EUROTRAC, the European co-ordinated research project studying the transport and chemical transformation of pollutants in the troposphere, has achieved a remarkable scientific success [1,2]. To ensure that full use is made of the scientific results to support environmental policy, an Application Project was formed to assimilate the scientific results from EUROTRAC and present them in a condensed form, together with recommendations where appropriate, so that they are suitable for use by those responsible for environmental planning and management in Europe. The paper presents a preliminary account of the major conclusions of the Application Project for atmospheric policy in Europe. 1. EUROTRAC and the Application Project EUROTRAC is the co-ordinated environmental research programme, within the EUREKA initiative, studying the transport and chemical transformation of trace substances in the troposphere over Europe. It was set up in 1985 as a response to the realisation that the scientific problems associated with trans-boundary air pollution could only be solved by an international inter-disciplinary project. EUROTRAC consists of more than 250 research groups in 24 European countries, and is organised into 14 subprojects. The Application Project (AP) was set up "to assimilate the scientific results from EUROTRAC and present them in a condensed form so that they are Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 6, © 1995 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541