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The meeting took place on 11th July 2024 at the office of the Žilina self-governing region with representatives of the local governments of the Žilina region, where the state of air quality in the affected area was presented. The participants were familiarized with the main source of air pollution, namely household heating, which most affects the state of the air in a given location. At the meeting, representatives of local governments presented the Program for Improving Air Quality. Representatives of local governments were also informed about pollutants, their monitoring and possible health effects. These pollutants are monitored by the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) with six automatic monitoring stations in the Žilina region. Information on monitoring was presented together with the modeling of at-risk municipalities, which were determined by the integrated assessment method. Municipalities that were included in the list of risk municipalities in the Žilina Region by the SHMI and assessed as level 2 and 3 risk municipalities are required to take measures to reduce emissions, and the SHMI identified 185 municipalities in the Žilina Region zone. The measures, which are divided into priority, support and cross-cutting, are primarily aimed at reducing emissions from local heating systems and were also presented in the Catalog of Measures (Ministry of the Environment of the Slovak Republic). The Slovak Environment Agency presented a prepared Educational package for municipalities, which was sent to municipalities throughout Slovakia. The educational package offers municipalities information materials, radio spots, video spots and other forms of education. Education within the principles of proper heating is one of the key solutions for reducing pollutant emissions and thus improving air quality in municipalities.

The meeting ended with a discussion, during which the participants were mainly interested in the measures they could implement in their village, the possibilities of monitoring pollutants, as well as the support of renewable resources and more. Air pollution in the Žilina Region Zone has a decreasing trend, but for European directives that set stricter limits, we need to work together on solutions in order to jointly achieve zero negative impact on the environment by 2050. If you are interested in how work is being done to improve air quality in other regions, read the articles from the Prešov and Banskobystrica regions.