About the symposium

The symposium started in the early 1980s at Middlesex Polytechnic (now university) as a cooperation between Professors Ron Hamilton (Middlesex University, UK) and Roy Harrison (University of Birmingham, UK). The initial aim was to measure and assess challenges in highway pollution. These chellenges particularly included urban photochemical smog, with an emphasis on ozone formation and particle release. The first symposium was titled Highway Pollution and had a clear aim to make a difference. The proceedings were published in an interdisciplinary journal.

After the first symposia, the emphasis on air pollution issues continued through to Munich (1989) where diesel particulate issues and the relevance to health through measurements of PM10 emerged. In parallel, the symposium started to receive an increasing number of scientific contributions from the area of urban runoff, indeed, to the extent that the title of the symposium was changed to highway and urban pollution. Also at this time, the importance of science in support of policy was emerging as a cornerstone for implementation and policy issues have continued as an aspect of the symposium to the present one.

Starting from the eigth symposium, we decided to evolve the name of the symposium from highway and urban pollution to highway and urban environment. A slight, but important change in scope and focus. We wish to give a more positive view of our common future looking to a positive environment, rather than the more negative wording pollution. That said, papers addressing pollution issues in the highway and urban environment remain a central part of the symposium as they help to raise awareness around issues to be solved.

Chronology of the previous symposia:
1983, 1986 - London
1989 - Munich
1992 - Madrid
1995 - Copenhagen
1998 - ISPRA JRC, Italy
2002 - Barcelona
2006 - Cyprus
2008 - Madrid

The tenth symposium will be held in Gothenburg in 2010. The organisers are TheAGS at Chalmers University of Technology.