Zuid-Holland Provincial Air Quality Action Plan

The Zuid-Holland provincial authority has drawn up a Provincial Air Quality Action Plan and asked CE Delft to analyse the effectiveness of the constituent measures in terms of cutting emissions of nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and airborne particulates (PM10).

The analysis focused on two categories of measures:

• The A list, comprising measures already implemented by the provincial authority or in the process of being so and measures certain to be taken in the future.
• The B list, comprising measures that may be implemented by the authority, but are still the subject of further deliberation.

Impact of A-list measures
The sum total of A-list measures will lead to estimated emission cuts of over 380 tonnes NOx and 27 tonnes PM10. Over 90% of this reduction potential can be achieved with just 4 of the 19 A-list measures:

• sustainability-based tenders for civil works and government supplies;

• emission requirements for public transport concessions;
• tackling hotspots along major through-roads;
• centralised energy systems for the Valkenburg construction project.

Impact of B-list measures
The sum total of B-list measures will lead to estimated cuts of 9 tonnes NOx and 0.5 tonne PM10. Compared with the A-list measures, the B-list package offers far less reduction potential. In part, this is because some of the proposed measures were too sketchy to calculate their likely impact. We do not anticipate them having any major impact, though. No independent impact was ascribed to several other measures, moreover, as they are too aligned with measures from the A list, with their impact already effectively included in that review.