The Swedish city of Umea and the Finnish city of Tampere have the cleanest air in Europe, according to a top EU environmental agency. In the ranking of the 320 monitored localities there are also 3 cities in Romania, but they are in the “red” area of the polluted localities.
Fine particles, the pollutant with the greatest impact on health in terms of premature death and disease were also low in the air in Funchal (Madeira), Tallinn (capital of Estonia) and the Norwegian city of Bergen.
The air quality list was based on an assessment of data from more than 320 cities in Europe, published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) on Thursday.
Among those 320, 127 cities were found to have good air quality (green area) while 123 had moderate pollution (yellow area) and 73 were classified as having poor or very poor quality (green area).
Most of the cities at the bottom of the ranking are in Poland and northern Italy.
The ranking also includes 4 cities in Romania. Bucharest is on the 263rd place, Timișoara – on the 267th, and Brașov has the weakest air quality, being on the 273rd place. The best placed, among the cities of Romania, is Botoşani, where the air quality is considered moderate, the city being placed on the 223rd place out of 323 cities.Bucharest is on the 263rd place – the indicator regarding the suspended particles being 16.4, in the conditions in which the city on the first position in the ranking has 3.7. Timisoara is on the 267th place, and Brasov is on the 273rd place, all three considered with a poor air quality.
The European Environment Agency has assessed PM2.5 particulate matter pollution in 323 cities in 26 EU countries, as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.The ranking covered the last two years and did not include all European cities, omissions caused by the lack of comparable data.
