The atmosphere is a layer of gas that surrounds our planet. The sublayer in the immediate vicinity of the earth's surface, the troposphere, is in a continuous dynamic. Its composition is constantly changing, and substances from anthropogenic activities such as industry, agriculture, car traffic, urbanization, etc., many of which are not found naturally in the atmosphere composition, accelerate this process and can form by reaction pollutants that are dangerous to human health and the environment in general. In addition, in urbanized areas temperatures are higher, and heat usually acts as a catalyst that triggers, facilitates, or accelerates chemical reactions. In this paper, the authors were interested to study the air condition in five cities, with a similar population, from different countries in Europe. Each of the five cities studied, namely Bucharest, Vienna, Hamburg, Warsaw, and Barcelona (with a population between 1.7 and 2 million inhabitants), managed to create areas of influence around them, called metropolitan areas, through which cities manage to develop and urbanize the surroundings, thus reaching a number of inhabitants between 2.3 and 5.7 million spread over large areas of land, from 1800 to 26000 km2. Urban agglomerations are very sensitive to pollution, because people can be affected by air pollutants that easily spread various diseases or viruses; therefore the aim of the work is to determine the main pollution sources of these metropolises and to evaluate the air quality applying the global pollution index method.

air quality index, pollution sources, Europe, metropolis

environmental engineering

Presentation: poster