Author(s)

G. Latini, M. Pacetti & G. Passerini

Abstract

The city of Ancona lies on the mid-Adriatic coast and its port has been important even before Rome’s millennial history of conquests set off. Today, Ancona still remains a rather important junction for the distribution of goods and the transfer of passengers at European level. The Ancona district also plays host to several industries, mainly located along the Esino Valley. Most of the Ancona Province is a complex valley-coastal area in central Italy comprising valleys, hills, highly populated areas and industrial districts. The two major air pollution sources in the area are a big oil refinery founded in 1950 at Falconara Marittima, and the A14 or \“Adriatic Highway”, which was completed in the early 1970s leading to an abrupt increase of road traffic. Close to the highly populated city of Falconara Marittima, the A14 intersects another major Highway nearby the local airport and the refinery. This concentration of pollution sources gave Falconara Marittima the unwanted role of guinea pig for what concerned pollution and an increasing demand for information and recovery arose within the population and politicians. Here we present some results of our studies about air pollution due to anthropogenic emissions in such a complex area. Keywords: air pollution, coast-valley environment. 1 Introduction In this paper we review some of the main results of about twenty years of studies about air pollution in the area of Ancona and Esino Valley. The city of Ancona lies on the mid-Adriatic coast and its port has been important even before Rome’s millennial history of conquests set off. Today, Ancona still remains a rather important junction for the distribution of goods and

Keywords

air pollution, coast-valley environment.