These countries sample with GENT samplers (PM2.5 and PM10-2.5) at rural and urban sites twice a week.
By now, large databases have been established in these countries which are used to help to identify the sources and their contribution to airborne particular matter concentrations. In some countries, where the progress in measuring filters loaded with airborne particulate matter was hindered by technical and/or operational problems, regional resource units (RRUs) were established to overcome backlog of samples etc. As result of this, most countries participating in RAS/07/013 are now in the position to apply NATs for air particulate matter monitoring.
The contents of this manual consists of describtions of the GENT sampler, filters, coating of coarse filters, loading of filters into the stacked filter cassette, setting up of the sampler, sampling time and frequency, charactersitics of sampling in clean and poluted sites and maintenance of the sampler that are important for quality assurance procedures.