Existing policies and measurement programmes in Slovenia:

In Slovenia, the main legal basis covering the air quality and its monitoring are the Decree on ambient air quality (available at: http://www.uradni-list.si/1/objava.jsp?urlid=20119&stevilka=368 ) and the Rules on assessment of ambient air quality and public information on ambient air quality (available at: http://www.uradni-list.si/1/objava.jsp?urlid=201155&stevilka=2525).  Both policies are prepared in accordance with Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.

The Decree on ambient air quality provides:

(i)             Ambient air quality standards, in particular the target, limit, warning, critical and alert thresholds for ambient air quality in order to avoid adverse effects on human health and the environment, ant to prevent or reduce them;

(ii)            way of informing the public on overcoming the threshold values ​​for certain pollutants and;

(iii)           obligation to prepare plans for maintaining and improving air quality (Table 1).

On the other hand, Rules on assessment of ambient air quality provides:

(i)             methods and criteria for assessing the quality of ambient air;

(ii)            rules regarding obtaining information on air quality to support the reduction of air pollution; and to monitor long-term trends and improvements for action at local, national and European Union level, and;

(iii)           the methods for regular communication with the public about air quality.

Legal limit values for air pollution valid in Slovenia:

Table 1: Limit values according to Decree on ambient air quality (Official gazette RS 9/11) and Rules on assessment of ambient air quality and public information on ambient air quality (Official gazette RS 55/11).

Goals:

- Daily limit concentration of PM10: 50 g/m³ (allowed tolerance - 35 times per calendar year)

- The hourly limit NO₂ concentration: 200 g/m³ (allowed tolerance - 18 times in one year)

- Ozone: maximum daily eight-hour mean value of 120 g/m³ not to be exceeded more than 25 days per calendar year averaged over three years. Warning value for ozone is 180 mg/m³, alert threshold is 240 g/m³.

- SO₂: hourly concentration limit of 350 g/m3 - allowed tolerance - 24 times in a calendar year. Daily concentration limit: 125 g/m3  - allowed tolerance - 3 times per calendar year. The alert thresholds for concentrations of sulfur dioxide, measured over three consecutive hours at locations representative of air quality over at least 100 km² in the entire zone or agglomeration, shall not exceed 500 g/m³.