2004/279/EC: Commission DecisionShow full title

3. THE NETHERLANDS

In order to examine the range of effectiveness of short-term abatement actions in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2010 the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) conducted a model study (EUROS model). A base grid resolution of 60 km was used for the whole model domain, whereas within the area Benelux and Germany local grid refinement to 15 km was applied. The simulations were performed using three different smog episodes in 1994, emission base years 1995, 2003 and 2010 and 5 different types of short-term actions. The three basic short-term actions concerned road traffic on a nationwide scale: S1 speed limits, S2 driving bans for cars without catalysts, S3 driving bans for trucks on inner urban roads. Scenario S4 imposes the combined effect of S1, S2 and S3 throughout the Netherlands, S5 does the same for the Benelux and part of Germany (North-Rhine-Westphalia) and S6, a hypothetical scenario, presumes no emissions of precursors in the Netherlands (a bottom-end extreme sensitivity test. The effectiveness of the different scenarios throughout time is given in table 1.

Table 1

An overview of the effects of short-term actions on the national precursor emission total. Values are a percentage of the national emission total

Countries that are affected			NL	NL	NL	NL	Benelux/Germany	NL
Scenario number			S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6
Effect on national emission total	NOX	1995	–3	–14	–3	–19	–19	–100
		2003	–2	–6	–3	–11	–11	–100
		2010	–1	0	–2	–3	–3	–100
	VOC	1995	0	–13	–1	–14	–14	–100
		2003	0	–5	–1	–6	–6	–100
		2010	0	0	–1	–1	–1	–100

All short-term actions solely concerned road traffic since other sectors appeared not very effective in reducing ozone precursor emissions and/or with considerable economic consequences.

As a result of the short-term measures the nationwide averaged 95 percentile values increased by a few percent for both 1995 and 2003. Only the bottom end extreme case showed a reduction of a few percent. The effectiveness of short term actions in 2010 becomes negligible (see also table 1). It seems therefore that the effectiveness of short term traffic measures reduces rapidly in time due to a decreasing number of cars without catalytic converters. Grid refined results (15 × 15 km2) show that the increase of 95 percentile values is mainly due to increasing values in the highly industrialised/populated areas (the NO-titration effect), while on the other hand ozone concentrations are hardly affected in less industrialised/populated areas. A substantial reduction in the ozone maxima can only be obtained through permanent and large-scale measures as is shown e.g. by the reduction of 95 percentile values between base years 2003 and 2010 of about 9 %.

Reference:

C.J.P.P. Smeets and J.P. Beck, Effects of short-term abatement measures on peak ozone concentrations during summer smog episodes in the Netherlands. Rep. 725501004/2001, RIVM, Bilthoven, 2001.