The regional Agency for the prevention and the environment of the Emilia-Romagna (ARPA) is operating from May 1996.

The Mission of ARPA is to preside on environmental monitoring issues for the sustainability of the atmosphere, health safety and emergency issues, and valorization of the resources.

ARPA develops and diffuses, in collaboration with private and public entities, processes of control and prevention aiming at improving the quality of the environmental systems and guaranteeing the protection of the health of the populations, through a grid of services capable of producing and disseminating knowledge and innovation.

ARPA is performing research activities on modelling of the air quality on a regional scale. For these models accurate observations of the tropospheric gases related to air pollution are essential for initialisation and validation of the regional models.