The accession of Poland to the European Union involved the need or regional air quality assessment and brought radical change in requirements towards the sottware tools used for assessment purposes. According to Polish law, a zone is an agglomeration o rover 250 000 inhabitants, or a poviat (second level or local government administration in Poland), or a group of poviats, and assessment should consider both global and regional inllow or pollutants as well as the impact of local emission sources and significant sources in a voivodeship. These requirements have imposed a model range of over 250 km. Following an analysis or different models operating all over the world, the CALPUFF model together with the CALMET meteorological processor was chosen to be implemented in air quality assessment systems in Polish zones. This paper presents the results or model calculations performed within the air quality assessment in Mazowieckie voivodeship as well as compares them with the measurements obtained at automatic air monitoring stations.

The paper investigates the air quality in the urban area of Warsaw, Poland. Calculations are carried out using the emissions and meteorological data from the year 2012. The modeling tool is the regional CALMET/CALPUFF system, which is used to link the emission sources with the distributions of the annual mean concentrations. Several types of polluting species that characterize the urban atmospheric environment, like PM10, PM2.5, NOx, SO2, Pb, B(a)P, are included in the analysis. The goal of the analysis is to identify the most polluted districts and polluting compounds there, to check where the concentration limits of particular pollutants are exceeded. Then, emission sources (or emission categories) which are mainly responsible for violation of air quality standards and increase the adverse health effects, are identified. The modeling results show how the major emission sources – the energy sector, industry, traffic and the municipal sector – relate to the concentrations calculated in receptor points, including the contribution of the transboundary inflow. The results allow to identify districts where the concentration limits are exceeded and action plans are needed. A quantitative source apportionment shows the emission sources which are mainly responsible for the violation of air quality standards. It is shown that the road transport and the municipal sector are the emission classes which substantially affect air quality in Warsaw. Also transboundary inflow contributes highly to concentrations of some pollutants. The results presented can be of use in analyzing emission reduction policies for the city, as a part of an integrated modeling system.