The annual summary tabular survey Air Pollution and Atmospheric Deposition in Data, the Czech
Republic 1997 is published as a basic document for the work of authorities and organizations
concerned with environmental issues and air quality protection in this country. The Tabular
Survey has been published by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute with various formal
modifications since the beginning of the nineteen seventies. Since 1981, on the basis of an
agreement between the then Ministry of Forests and Water Management and the Ministry of Health,
the Czech Meteorological Institute was entrusted with overall processing and the Institute of
Hygiene and Epidemiology (now the National Health Institute) was designated as the collective
workplace for the health sector. Since then, data from the air quality network of these
organizations and other important special-purpose networks for monitoring air pollution
conditions have been stored and processed in the Internal (later Air Pollution) Information
System (IIS) of the Territorial Information System (ISU).
IIS naturally became a respected information support with country-wide implementation. Since
1992, the Air Pollution Information System, along with the other air-quality information agendas,
has become an integral part of the Air Quality Information System (ISKO). Each year, information
is stored in this air pollution database both from data in the Hydrometeorological Institute and
Public Health Service information systems as well as from data from stations in the networks of
the Forest Management and Gamekeeping Research Institute (VÚLHM), the Organization for the
Rationalization of Power Plants (ORGREZ), and a number of organizations and institutes of the
agricultural sector, especially the Research Institute of Plant Production and the network of the
Ekotoxa company. Significant changes continue to be made in the network of stations. Of those
that occurred in 1993, the most important included termination of operations of the older system
and initiation of measuring of innovated automatic air pollution monitoring (AIM) by the Czech
Hydrometeorological Institute. Since 1996, data from German side of "Black Triangle", and since
1997, data from Polish side as well are stored in the ISKO quality database and are presented in
the Tabular Survey.
This Tabular Survey is the result of summary processing of air quality data that was
systematically stored over the given calendar year. It is intended primarily to give a timely
objective publication of measured air quality data from the above mentioned monitoring networks.
The process of verification of the credibility of the measured data plays an important role in
the annual processing and is an inseparable part of the preparation of the Tabular Survey.
Since 1993, the Annual Tabular Survey has consisted of both a printed part - the summary annual
survey - and also a detailed part consisting of daily information, which is distributed primarily
on diskettes. Compared to the earlier form, the summary printed part contains a number of changes
and supplements. The most important change is the publication of a number of air pollution
measurements from specialized air pollution networks. Notably, since 1994, the summary annual
survey gives information on contents of heavy metals in suspended particulate matter. Further,
the Tabular Survey has become a medium for the publication of data on the chemical composition of
precipitation. Since 1994, the air pollution database has been extended to include information on
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air. Since 1995, the supplementary meteorological data
has been involved and since 1997 data of systematic monitoring of persistent organic compounds (
POPs) and automatic monitoring of aromatic hydrocarbons in the air has become a part of air
pollution database.
More extensive assessment, especially in the framework of territories, is contained in the
Graphic Yearbook, whose preparation is bound to the tabular treatment.
The requirements of accuracy in the contents and formal aspects and completeness of the Tabular
Survey and the requirement that the information be published as soon as possible lead to a
certain conflict of conditions in the preparation of this Survey and each published edition thus
constitutes a compromise between these two requirements. The readiness with which the Tabular
Survey can be published is determined primarily by the deadline for completion of the annual
input of data into the database, its assembling, verification and correction. In spite of gradual
rationalization of data collection, based on more thorough utilization of computer technology in
the collection, accumulation and verification of data at the contributing station, practice so
far, especially in the manual measuring network of contributing organizations, does not permit
completion of data input from the previous year, along with assembling and correction, sooner
than the end of March of a given year. Statistically based database applications to find
significant errors in extensive sets of measured values became a standard part of the preparation
since 1994. The utilization of these procedures prior to the actual data processing is essential,
but once again prolongs the period required for the final processing.
Since this year the Tabular Survey has been prepared in bilingual version for improvement of
international exchange of air quality data.
In concluding, it is necessary to point out that this publication and especially the database on
which it is founded were created as a consequence of a vast amount of work on the part of a great
many individuals, employees of the branches of institutes, laboratories of the Air Quality
Protection Section of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and of cooperating organizations.
The actual preparation of the Tabular Survey is the result of cooperative work by the group of
authors from the Air Quality Information System Department and employees of the IDEA-ENVI Co. Ltd.
Prague, May 1998 Ivan Obrusník M.Eng., DrSc.
Director of the Institute
