Background Bucharest is one of Romania’s most polluted cities. Sixty percent of the city’s cars are more than eight years old and the intense traffic is one of the main causes of air pollution. Bucharest’s urban area is expected to continue growing at a significant rate until 2010. Air pollution from road traffic will increase accordingly, contributing to increased incidences of airborne lung diseases. Objectives The project responds to the Community’s Air Quality Framework Directive by developing a set of indicators and calibrating them according to the correlation between air pollution and public health. Its overall aim is to assist spatial planning decision-making, traffic management and pollution control in the Bucharest metropolitan area by predicting the health and environmental impacts of air pollution. The project plans to promote a cross-institutional data sharing system, to develop a set of indicators, and to construct a mathematical model of air pollution based on a geographic information systems (GIS) platform. Results After some delays in the preparatory phase, the project successfully installed the AIR-AWARE decision-making tool. This can be used by local authorities in Bucharest to predict the impact of air pollution episodes and improve overall air quality through better physical planning and urban development policies. AIR-AWARE provides visual and user-friendly data on a GIS platform for the current status of atmospheric pollution by measuring chemical contaminants in the air and reviewing bioindicator species in the city's parks. Using current monitoring data and weather forecasts, short-term effects of acute pollution episodes can be calculated and the population informed to enable suitable measures to be taken. Reduction of air pollution in Bucharest is expected to reduce incidence of air-born diseases, the public health costs of which accounted for Euro 4.4 million in 2003, according to an Environmental Status Report issued by the Bucharest Municipality in 2004. The report estimates that some 10% of this figure can be estimated as being caused by air pollution. The implementation of AIR-AWARE's pollution prevention plan is expected to reduce the air contamination load by 50%, leading to savings in excess of Euro 175 000/yr. Maps of contaminants provided by AIR-AWARE will be used to update the Bucharest Urban Zoning Plan. Furthermore, the beneficiary believes that the system in use in the Romanian capital can easily be replicated in at least 20 'hot spots' - very polluted urban areas identified by the Romanian authorities and in the country's EU accession negotiation documents. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).