INTEGAIRE

Coordinator: Dr Eva Baños de Guisasola, EUROCITIES, Belgium

Title: Integrated Urban Governance and Air Quality Management in EUROPE

Aim: To explore solutions to key challenges for urban governance and air quality management throughout Europe.

www: http://www.integaire.org

1. Problems to be solved

INTEGAIRE aims to explore solutions to key challenges for urban governance and air quality management throughout Europe. The principal objectives are:
The first focuses on urban governance and concerns the development of the existing weak and poorly specified interface between, on the one hand, air quality assessment, management and monitoring tools developed in relation to the urban environment, and on the other hand, tools for sustainable urban governance at the urban level. The aim is to encourage the development of a strongly integrated model and appropriate tools linking air quality science and technology to the needs of end users at the urban level, and thereby optimise local decision making;
The second horizontal objective concerns the development of a coherent and comprehensive framework of network activities that facilitates the identification of RTD gaps and future RTD priorities in the field of urban air quality management and urban governance. These initiatives will assist the development, and provide a sound basis for, the new research agenda, that will be pursued via the 6th Framework Programme and the European Research Area.

2. Scientific objectives & approach
INTEGAIRE aims to contribute to:

• Improving the implementation at urban level of current Air Quality legislation through the development of recommendations and exchange of experience on air quality management, air quality assessment, integration of national and local practice and public information.

• Information exchange on approaches and successes on the development and/or implementation of local action. This activity focuses on the results of European & national research and its usefulness in the local context and on sharing this information with ongoing work on European policy developments, feeding into the European “Clean Air For Europe” (CAFÉ) initiative.
  

• Integration between local and European levels in development of EU Air Quality policy (CAFÉ)
  

• Interactions with existing RTD activities on Air Quality (SATURN, relevant FP5 projects including ISHTAR, URBAN-AEROSOL and BUGS, and relevant national/ local projects/programmes) to promote the use of research results and new tools in Air Quality management and to identify gaps in available information, highlighting research priorities

3. Expected impacts

3.1. Provision of an international forum for urban air quality officials and other urban air quality specialists;

3.2. Identification of effective urban strategies;

3.3. Identification of institutional barriers and solutions to integrate urban Air Quality management into other fields of competence including transport, spatial planning and regional competencies;

3.4. Identification of implementation problems in current legislation and solutions;

3.5. Stimulation of urban Air Quality management by encouraging interaction amongst responsible local officials;

3.6. Increased effectiveness of urban Air Quality management: insights into the “pros and cons” of different approaches;

3.7. Better implementation at the urban level of current Air Quality legislation;

3.8. Inputs from the urban level to planned revisions of Air Quality legislation;

3.9. More effective communication with citizens;

3.10. Stimulation of a coherence between public information/involvement approaches across Europe;

3.11. Provision of a toolbox of strategies/approaches/measures for Air Quality officers;

3.12. Provision of a forum of local expertise to assist developers of European level strategies and measures;

3.13. Better insights into the feasibility of local measures to improve urban Air Quality;

3.14. Inputs to the development of urban Air Quality improvement scenarios in CAFÉ;

3.15. Broad forum for providing feedback to ideas developed in CAFÉ.

4. Work packages

To achieve these objectives INTEGAIRE Thematic Network is built upon, structured by, and delivered through a series of Work Packages. These Work Packages address both horizontal and thematic issues.

Horizontal Work Packages: are concerned with cross-cutting issues such as Project Management, Dissemination and Exploitation of outputs and Integration and Synthesis that facilitates the cross linking of debates into all work packages (These three work packages are: 1) Project Management; 2) Dissemination and Exploitation and 3) Thematic Strategy).

Thematic Work Packages: address specific thematic challenges identified by the project partners as most relevant to the specific identified priorities of the Key Action City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage. Thematic Work Packages addressing clearly defined and interlinked problem areas will mostly run in parallel (Governance and Air Quality Management; Air Quality, Land and Transport Planning; Legislation and Implementation).

5. Participants

1. EUROCITIES
2. UWE-University of the West of England, Bristol
3. TNO-Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Aprldoorn
4. NILU-Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Oslo
5. ENEA-Ente per le Nuove Technologie, l’Energia e l’Ambiente, Roma
6. BHAM-Birmingham City Council
7. BRIS-Bristol City Council
8. UTRE-Municipality of Utrecht
9. UBC-Union of Baltic Cities, Turku
10. MA-Malmö City Council
11. Venezia-Comune di Venezia
12. Sevilla-Ayuntamiento de Seville. Delegación Medio Ambiente
13. DUS-Landeshauptstadt, Dusseldorf
14. LEIP-Stadt Leipzig, Betrieb für Beschäftigungsförderugn,
15. AEDE-Municipality of Athens Development Agency
16. GOTH-City of Goteborg, Environment Administration