Sassari, Livorno, Savona, Battipaglia and Siracusa. These are five Italian cities that, according to the European Environment Agency, have a “fair” level of air quality, with fine particulate matter levels between 5 and 10 μg/m3.
This is revealed by the latest update on air quality in European cities published by the EEA, according to which none of the 61 Italian cities analysed are at the two extremes of the ranking, i.e. in “good” or “very poor” conditions.
Sassari is located in the medium “fair” range and is the first Italian city with a particulate matter level of 6.2 μg/m3.
Another 29 Italian cities - including Rome (12.8), Naples (13.7) and Bologna (14.2) - have a "moderate" quality with particulate matter levels above 10 and not above 15 μg/m3; 27 cities - including Milan (19.7), Turin (21) and Venice (22.6) - have a "poor" quality with levels above 15 and not above 25 μg/m3. Closing the Italian "ranking" is the city of Cremona with particulate matter levels of 23.3 μg/m3.
Looking at the top of the ranking, the small Swedish city of Uppsala leads the way with a score of 3.5.
The EEA update ranked a total of 375 European cities from cleanest to most polluted based on average levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) recorded over the last two calendar years, 2022 and 2023.
According to the data, however, only 13 European cities have 'good' air quality with concentrations of fine particulate matter below 5 micrograms per cubic metre of air (5 μg/m3).
(Unioneonline/lf)
