Percentage of urban population resident in areas for days per year with PM10 concentration exceeding daily limit value

Note: The limit value is 50 µg PM10/m3 (24 hour average, i.e. daily), not to be exceeded more than 35 times a calendar year. Over the years 2001-2011 the total population for which exposure estimates are made, increased from 66 to 149 million people due to an increasing number of monitoring stations reporting air quality data under the Exchange of Information Decision. Year-to-year variations in exposure classes are partly caused by the changes in spatial coverage. Only urban and sub-urban background monitoring stations have been included in the calculations. Data for Greece and Malta are not included due to missing availability of operational urban and sub-urban background monitoring stations in the Urban Audit cities.