“Citizen and air quality”. Survey’s results available
The first survey on the citizens’ perception of the Air quality at Po Basin level.
On Thursday, July the 11th, at the Testori Auditorium in Milan, within the international conference “The Po basin together for the quality of air”, Marco Ottolenghi of Art-ER presented the results of “Citizen and Air Quality”, The first survey on the citizens’ perception of the Air quality at Po Basin level. The survey was carried out within the activities of Prepair project, ART-ER was responsible for the action.
The survey start from the fact that over 23 million people (40% of the population in Italy) live in the regions of the Po valley basin and over 50% of the Italian GDP is produced here. The atmospheric emissions in this basin are thus significant. However they are lower than the European Union average and in line with those of the most advanced countries, if compared to GDP or the number of inhabitants. This is a sign that the technological standards and management practices are among the most advanced.
Despite this, the orographic conformation and the particular meteorological and climatic conditions of the basin make the dispersion of pollutants particularly difficult, with above threshold values for dust, nitrogen oxides and ozone.
Atmospheric pollution in this area of Italy goes beyond local boundaries and requires a supra-regional approach- Integrated and coordinated measures need to be introduced over a vast area in order to reduce emissions and thus obtain a decrease of pollutant concentrations in the atmosphere.
“Valuta l’aria”‘s Survey (evaluate the air) inteded to investigate on the perception and awareness of citizens regarding the Air quality issue with a focus on the factors perceived as the main cause of air pollutions.
How do citizens in the Po Basin perceive this problem? Are they aware that many actions to improve air quality are closely linked to their lifestyle? How willing are they to change their habits? And above, how can local authorities get them to change these habits?
These are some of the questions covered by the survey which took place from 23 November 2018 to 10 January 2019 and aroused great interest in the entire area of the Po basin. A total of 7,331 citizens voluntarily filled in the questionnaire. All 42 cities (provincial capitals) in the basin were involved, where a total of 6.5 million inhabitants live.
The results of the survey are avilable here:
