Abstract
Detailed discussion of the FLAME data at individual country level is included in other papers in this volume but some aspects of the analyses and data interpretation are best discussed on a broader level and that is the aim of this paper. The spatial distribution of fly-ash particles in the participating countries shows good agreement with expected sources and this implies that the majority of particulates travel less than 100 km from their source although lower concentrations of particles were detected at all sample sites.
Areas of elevated concentration mostly coincide with population centres and imply possible impacts on human health by fine particulates (e.g. PM10) from fossil-fuel sources in these areas.
Problems with the particle characterisation, developed within the FLAME project, include difficulties in allocation due to the overlap between coal-series fuels and the presence of a 'mineral coal' background at lake sites thought to be due to persistent sediment minerals surviving the chemical pre-treatment and becoming allocated to coal. This leads to implications for the inclusion of further fuels into the classification and the application of the technique to the same fuels beyond Europe.
The combination of lake sediment SCP data and sediment and moss metals data can also provide an indication of the impact from anthropogenic contamination at a site and probable source types. Comparison with previous moss analyses from 1990 show that metal concentrations in central Europe may have decreased but levels in the UK have shown little change.
Finally, comparisons of FLAME data with the EMEP model for pollutant budgets across Europe generally show good agreement for pathways, although further work is needed in receptor countries for additional confirmation.