Impact of ground-level ozone on Mediterranean forest ecosystems health.

Given the high ozone concentrations observed in the Mediterranean region during summer, it is crucial to extend our knowledge on the potential ozone impacts on forest health with in situ studies, especially to protect typical endemic forests of the Mediterranean basin. This study is focused on ozone measurements and exposures over the Eastern Adriatic coast and on the calculation of different O metrics, i.e.

Impacts of air pollution on human and ecosystem health, and implications for the National Emission Ceilings Directive: Insights from Italy.

Across the 28 EU member states there were nearly half a million premature deaths in 2015 as a result of exposure to PM, O and NO. To set the target for air quality levels and avoid negative impacts for human and ecosystems health, the National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD, 2016/2284/EU) sets objectives for emission reduction for SO, NOx, NMVOCs, NH and PM for each Member State as percentages of reduction to be reached in 2020 and 2030 compared to the emission levels into 2005. One of the innovations of NECD is Article 9, that mentions the issue of "monitoring air pollution impacts" on ecosystems.

Modelling study of soil C, N and pH response to air pollution and climate change using European LTER site observations.

Current climate warming is expected to continue in coming decades, whereas high N deposition may stabilize, in contrast to the clear decrease in S deposition. These pressures have distinctive regional patterns and their resulting impact on soil conditions is modified by local site characteristics. We have applied the VSD+ soil dynamic model to study impacts of deposition and climate change on soil properties, using MetHyd and GrowUp as pre-processors to provide input to VSD+.