European Commission harmonisation programme for air quality measurements

Within the harmonisation programme of Air Quality monitoring in Europe the European Reference Laboratory of Air Pollution (ERLAP) organises Inter-Laboratory Comparison Exercises (ILC). From the 20th to the 23rd of May 2019, including ERLAP, eight Laboratories of AQUILA (Network of European Air Quality Reference Laboratories) met for a laboratory comparison exercise in Ispra (IT) to evaluate their proficiency in the analysis of inorganic gaseous air pollutants (NO, NO2, SO2, CO and O3) covered by the European Air Quality Directive 2008/50 EC [1] and its recent amendments 2015/1480/EC [42]. Two laboratories didn’t report values for SO2. The proficiency evaluation, where each participant’s bias was compared to two criteria, provides information on the current situation and capabilities to the European Commission and can be used by participants in their quality control system. On the basis of adopted criteria, 82% of the results reported by AQUILA laboratories were good both in terms of measured values and reported uncertainties. The rest of the results had good measured values, but the reported uncertainties were either too high (11%) or too small (4%). Based on the z’-score evaluation, six values were found to be questionable (3%) and none of the values were unsatisfactory. Comparability of results among AQUILA participants at the highest generated concentration levels is satisfactory for measurements of all pollutants.

BARBIERE Maurizio;  LAGLER Friedrich;  BOROWIAK Annette; 

2019-11-11

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC118184

978-92-76-12331-6 (online),   

1831-9424 (online),   

EUR 29896 EN,    OP KJ-NA-29896-EN-N (online),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC118184,   

10.2760/08238 (online),