Comparing air quality in Italy, Germany and Poland using BC indexes

In this paper we discuss air quality assessment in three Italian, German and Polish regions using the index methodology proposed by Bruno and Cocchi. This analysis focuses first of all on the air quality in each of the considered countries, and then adopts a more general approach in order to compare pollution severity and toxicity. In this context, air quality indexes are a powerful data-driven tool since they are easily calculated and summarize a complex phenomenon, such as air pollution, in indicators which are immediately understandable. The use of a unique index should be encouraged in a global European perspective where all countries are commonly involved in assessing air quality and taking proper measures for improving it. In particular, the main objective of this work is to evaluate the index performances in distinguishing different health risk related air pollution patterns. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.