BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

tam for setting up good emission inventories. In particular it is neccessary that the
pollution sources are classified correctly into the source sectors that are defined in the
international agreements. EGAP and TC have accordingly agreed to exchange observers at
their meetings.
International Cooperation
As indicated at several occasions HELCOM and EC EGAP have developed extensive
cooperative links with UN_ECE/EMEP, PARCOM and EC. This is also reflected in the
fact that usually these organisations are represented by observers at meetings of the various
bodies, including EGAP. In a similar way coordination and information exchange take
place with other international organisations such as ICES, &rternational Commission on
Exploration of the Sea and WMO, UN’s World hJeteorologica1 Qrganisation.
The situation with respect to ECE/EMEP is special because a formal agreement has been
reached according to which HELCOM may enter into contracts with EMEP’s international
Chemical and Meteorological Centers that take care of data storage and model calculations,
respectively. EGAP has in fact drawn up a contract with the Chemical Coordinating Center
in order to have the EGAP monitoring data stored in a database at this center in Norway.
An informal cooperation with the Meteorological Synthesizing Centers East and West has
also been established so that also model calculations are available for assessments of the
air pollution situation in the Baltic Sea.
Assessments
The results from the monitoring programme and the model calculations are used to assess
the state of air pollution in the Baltic Sea. These assessment are carried out regularly every
few years so that they can be used in the comprehensive assessments of the total state of
pollution in the Baltic Sea - the HELCOM Pollution Load Compilations.
The most recent assessment performed by EGAP (Helsinki Commission 1991) covers the
S-year period 19861990 and it was mainly focused on the atmospheric deposition of
nitrogen. One of the major results was the estimates of wet deposition fluxes of nitrogen to
various subbasins of the Baltic Sea which are shown in Figure 4. The north-to-south
gradient is again clearly seen.
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