EEA recent publications on air pollution, water, noise, biodiversity, circular economy and mobility

We have picked a selection of the latest reports and briefings published by the European Environment Agency, tailored for urban policy makers and covering different topics. These reports, briefings and factsheets offer valuable insights and guidance to enhance environmental protection in our cities.

Air quality

• Air pollution country fact sheets
• Briefing ‘Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe: burden of disease status 2024’
• Briefing ‘Impacts of air pollution on ecosystems in Europe’

Water

• Report ‘Europe's state of water 2024: the need for improved water resilience’
• Web report ‘EEA Signals 2024 – Towards healthy and resilient waters in Europe’

Noise

• Briefing ‘The effect of environmental noise on children’s reading ability and behaviour in Europe’

Circular economy

• Briefing ‘Europe’s circular economy in facts and figures’ 
• Briefing ‘Measuring the quality of recycling’
• Report ’Addressing the environmental and climate footprint of buildings’

Biodiversity

• Report ‘Exploring the societal factors enabling to halt and reverse the loss and change of biodiversity’

Mobility

• Report ‘Sustainability of Europe’s mobility systems’

Air quality 

The EEA published the Air pollution country fact sheets on 10 December, covering the 31 EEA member countries and 6 cooperating countries. Significant proportion of Europe's urban population lives in cities where EU air quality standards for the protection of human health are regularly exceeded. Air pollution continues to have significant impacts on the health of Europeans, particularly in urban areas.

The briefing ‘Harm to human health from air pollution in Europe: burden of disease status 2024’, published on 10 December, quantifies the latest estimated impact on population health caused by long-term exposure to fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Reducing air pollution to these WHO guideline levels would prevent a significant number of annual deaths in EU Member States (EU-27): 239,000 from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5); 70,000 from exposure to ozone (O3) and 48,000 from exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

The briefing ‘Impacts of air pollution on ecosystems in Europe’, published on 10 December, examines how vegetation is exposed to key air pollutants. In 2022, 73% of the EU-27’s ecosystems were above the critical atmospheric nitrogen loads for eutrophication; almost one third of Europe’s agricultural lands were exposed to ground-level ozone (O3) concentrations above the threshold value set for protection of vegetation in the EU’s Ambient Air Quality Directive; 62% of the total forest area in the 32 EEA member countries exceeded critical levels set to protect forests; significant decreases in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) over recent decades have mostly addressed the problem of acidification.

Water

The report ‘Europe's state of water 2024: the need for improved water resilience’ published on 15 October, shows that, despite some progress, Europe’s waters and aquatic ecosystems are still severely impacted by chemicals, predominantly by air pollution from coal-powered energy generation and diffuse pollution by nutrients and pesticides from agriculture. Habitat degradation is also widespread. Europe is not on track to meet its targets to improve the health of waters under EU rules. Better water management is key to improve water resilience, to alleviate pressures on water and to ensure European citizens, nature and industry have enough good-quality water.

The web report ‘EEA Signals 2024 – Towards healthy and resilient waters in Europe’ published on 4 December, includes articles covering nature, pollution and climate change, and it tells a story about how Europe has improved the quality of its bathing waters 

Noise 

The briefing ‘The effect of environmental noise on children’s reading ability and behaviour in Europe’, published on 12 December, provides information about the effect of environmental noise from road, rail and air transport on children’s reading ability and behaviour in Europe, to support EU policy responses. Over half a million children in Europe experience impaired reading ability due to environmental noise from road, rail and air transport. Almost 60,000 cases in Europe of behavioural difficulties in children are due to environmental noise generated from transport.

Circular economy

The briefing ‘Europe’s circular economy in facts and figures’ published on 5 December, provides a state of play on Europe’s progress  towards circularity. Resource productivity in Europe is more than 2.5 times higher than the world average and almost half of all waste generated in Europe gets recycled. Still, an average European uses about 14 tonnes of materials and generates 5 tonnes of waste annually, which is among world’s highest levels and beyond sustainable limits. 

The briefing ‘Measuring the quality of recycling’ published on 5 December, offers a practical definition of recycling quality. Priority should be given to promoting recycling quality and to increasing recycling volumes (currently stagnating at around 46%). High-quality recycling means optimising the entire recycling system by increasing its efficiency in capturing recyclables. A case study for PET bottles shows that the highest quality is achieved in a closed-loop system where the material is collected through deposit-refund schemes and recycled into bottles again.

The report ’Addressing the environmental and climate footprint of buildings’, published on 30 September, assesses the current state of Europe’s buildings stock and looks at what is needed to make Europe’s buildings more sustainable. More than 30% of the EU's environmental footprint comes from buildings. About one third of the Union’s material consumption goes to construction. The use of buildings accounts for 42% of the total energy consumption and 35% of greenhouse gas emissions. Decommissioning buildings leads to the largest waste stream in the EU by weight. 

Biodiversity

The report ‘Exploring the societal factors enabling to halt and reverse the loss and change of biodiversity’ published on 4 November, identifies eight key societal barriers spanning socio-economic, political, and cultural domains, such as knowledge gaps, misinformation, a utilitarian mindset, short-termism, governance challenges, social norms, perception of others, and the filtering of information. To tackle these barriers, the report outlines five transformative levers – offering alternative narratives, levelling-out power imbalances, enhancing knowledge, understanding societal acceptance, and strengthening governance structures – within which seven actionable success factors are proposed.

Transport

The report ‘Sustainability of Europe’s mobility systems’ published on 10 October sums up transport sector’s key trends as of 2024, and their environmental and climate impacts. In 2022, cars accounted for almost three quarters (73%) of passenger-kilometres travelled in the EU, and kilometres driven by car increased by 25% from 1995 to 2022. Meanwhile, the use of more sustainable public transport modes — buses, trams, metros — has remained stable. The EU transport sector has succeeded in significantly reducing emissions of most air pollutants with policy measures, such as tighter emission standards, and technological development.