Despite more than 20 years of regulatory efforts, concern is widespread that ozone pollution in the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, threatens the health of humans, animals, and vegetation. This book discusses how scientific information can be used to develop more effective regulations to control ozone. Rethinking the Ozone Problem in Urban and Regional Air Pollution discusses: The latest data and analysis on how tropospheric ozone is formed. How well our measurement techniques are functioning. Deficiencies in efforts to date to control the problem. Approaches to reducing ozone precursor emissions that hold the most promise. What additional research is needed. With a wealth of technical information, the book discusses atmospheric chemistry, the role of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ozone formation, monitoring and modeling the formation and transport processes, and the potential contribution of alternative fuels to solving the tropospheric ozone problem. The committee discusses criteria for designing more effective ozone control efforts. Because of its direct bearing on decisions to be made under the Clean Air Act, this book should be of great interest to environmental advocates, industry, and the regulatory community as well as scientists, faculty, and students.

The Committee on Ozone-Forming Potential for Reformulated Gasoline was asked whether the existing body of scientific and technical information is sufficient to permit a robust evaluation and comparison of the emissions from motor vehicles using different reformulated gasolines based on their ozone-forming potentials and to assess the concomitant impact of that approach on air-quality benefits of the use of oxygenates within the RFG program. As part of its charge, the committee was asked to consider (1) the technical soundness of various approaches for evaluating and comparing the relative ozone-forming potentials of RFG blends, (2) technical aspects of various air-quality issues related to RFG assessment, and (3) the sensitivity of evaluations of the relative ozone-forming potentials to factors related to fuel properties and the variability of vehicle technologies and driving patterns.

With the advent of the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1986, many water utilities are reexamining their water treatment practices. Upcoming new regulations on disinfection and on disinfection by-products, in particular, are the primary driving forces for the big interest in ozone. It appears that ozone, with its strong disinfection capabilities, and apparently lower levels of disinfection by-products (compared to other disinfectants), may be the oxidant/disinfectant of choice. Many utilities currently using chlorine for oxidation may need to switch due to chlorine by-product concerns. Utilities using chloramines may need to use ozone to meet CT requirements. This book, prepared by 35 international experts, includes current technology on the design, operation, and control of the ozone process within a drinking water plant. It combines almost 100 years of European ozone design and operating experience with North American design/operations experience and the North American regulatory and utility operational environment. Topics covered include ozone chemistry, toxicology, design consideration, engineering aspects, design of retrofit systems, and the operation and economics of ozone technology. The book contains a "how to" section on ozone treatability studies, which explains what information can be learned using treatability studies, at what scale (bench, pilot, or demonstration plant), and how this information can be used to design full-scale systems. It also includes valuable tips regarding important operating practices, as well as guidance on retrofits and the unique issues involved with retrofitting the ozone process. With ozone being one of the hottest areas of interest in drinking water, this book will prove essential to all water utilities, design engineers, regulators, and plant managers and supervisors.

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in late 2002 and 2003 challenged the global public health community to confront a novel epidemic that spread rapidly from its origins in southern China until it had reached more than 25 other countries within a matter of months. In addition to the number of patients infected with the SARS virus, the disease had profound economic and political repercussions in many of the affected regions. Recent reports of isolated new SARS cases and a fear that the disease could reemerge and spread have put public health officials on high alert for any indications of possible new outbreaks. This report examines the response to SARS by public health systems in individual countries, the biology of the SARS coronavirus and related coronaviruses in animals, the economic and political fallout of the SARS epidemic, quarantine law and other public health measures that apply to combating infectious diseases, and the role of international organizations and scientific cooperation in halting the spread of SARS. The report provides an illuminating survey of findings from the epidemic, along with an assessment of what might be needed in order to contain any future outbreaks of SARS or other emerging infections.

Tropospheric ozone is a regionally distributed air pollutant that adversely affects both humans and vegetation. Surface-Level Ozone Exposures and Their Effects on Vegetation focuses on the formation, distribution, and transport of surface-level ozone; the characterization of its exposures; the mechanisms and processes involved in its deposition and uptake by plants; and its effects on the growth of crops and forest trees. State-of-the-art information is presented and the methodology for studying its effects on vegetation is critically reviewed. This background material leads to a discussion of the approaches for developing an air quality standard that will provide protection from the adverse effects of ozone, as well as suggestions for future research directions. Researchers and professionals in the utility industry, oil industry, and government environmental agencies; university instructors; and students will find that this book is filled with information that can be used on a daily basis in their work and studies.

The idea for this book arose in 1993, after the Free State of Bavaria through its Bayrisches Staatsministerium rur Landesentwicklung und Umweltfragen (Bavarian Ministry of Regional Development and the Environment) decided to discontinue both the Bavarian project management (PBWU) for forest decline research and the multidisciplinary field research on the Wank Mountain in the Alps near Garmisch. Forest decline through the action of ozone and other photooxidants was a main topic of the supported re search in the Alps and will be a topic of new investigations in the Bavarian Forest. Many interesting results were obtained, but the researchers involved have not had sufficient time to allow reliable conclusions to be drawn. It was therefore decided to ask inter national experts for contributions in order to summarize the best available evidence of a possible link between ozone and forest decline - a topic which has been studied in the USA since the late 1950s and in Europe since the early 1980s. The original idea of Waldsterben as an irreversible large-scale dieback of forests in Germany was soon recognized to be wrong (Forschungsbeirat 1989). However, the new criteria used for the official German and European damage inventories (loss or yel lowing of needles or leaves, tree morphology) indicate that per sistently high percentages of damaged spruce and pine remain, and there is an increasing percentage of damaged beech and oak, with a high proportion of biotic disease (Forschungsbeirat 1989; UN-ECE 1995).