Peter Builtjes – författare

This volume presents the results and conclusions of the Application Project of EUROTRAC about the state of the troposphere over Europe, drawing from the plethora of scientific results. The various findings and recommendations on local, regional and global scales illustrate the complexities of the situation and indicate the subsequent difficulties which face environmental policy makers seeking to find ways to abate pollution on a regional scale. The book is recommended first for the scientific and policy-related information which it contains. In addition, the book is an excellent illustration of how the scientific programme can be evaluated in order to draw conclusions which are useful in policy development.

EUROTRAC is the EUREKA environmental project studying the transport and chemical transformation of pollutants in the troposphere over Europe. At its inception in 1988 it had three aims: * to increase the basic understanding of atmospheric science; * to promote the technological development of sensitive, specific, fast-response instrumentation for environmental research and monitoring; and * to improve the scientific basis for taking future political decisions on environmental management within Europe. It was clear at an early stage, as the fourteen subprojects were formed and more than two hundred research groups in twenty-four countries were incorporated, that the first aim would readily be achieved. An ample demonstration that the early indications were correct is provided in the other volumes in this series which describe the scientific progress made. Substantial progress was also made towards achieving the second aim although some problems were encountered, mainly due to the high cost of the technological development required.