Air pollution transport in the Balkan region and country-to-country pollution exchange between Romania, Bulgaria and Greece

US EPA Models-3 system is used for calculating the exchange of ozone pollution between three countries in southeast Europe. For the purpose, three domains with resolution 90, 30 and 10 km are chosen in such a way that the most inner domain with dimensions 90 x 147 points covers entirely Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. The ozone pollution levels are studied on the base of three indexes given in the EU Ozone Directive, mainly accumulated over threshold of 40 ppb for crops (AOT40C, period May-July), number of days with 8-h running average over 60 ppb (NOD60) and averaged daily maximum (ADM). These parameters are calculated for every scenario and the influence of each country emissions on the pollution of the region is estimated and commented. Oxidized and reduced sulphur and nitrogen loads over the territories of the three countries are also determined. The application of all scenarios gave the possibility to estimate the contribution of every country to the S and N pollution of the others and detailed blame matrixes to be build. Comparison of the ozone levels model estimates with data from the EMEP monitoring stations is made. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.