The German Guideline on Odour in Ambient Air (GOAA) has been around for a good couple of decades, but it was just this... a Guideline. There were no  general odour limits in the German main legislation on ambient air (TA Luft). During the last years, the GOAA has been fully accepted at court as a regulatory system, so this was the logical step forward.

   Last Friday the Federal Council of Germany approved the amendment of the TA Luft and now the odour impact criteria set in the GOAA will be incorporated into the TA Luft, meaning that the GOAA will no longer be a Guidance, but it will become an odour regulation. That is, Germany there will be a regulatory limit of 1 odour hour in ambient air that cannot be exceeded more than 876 hours a year in residential areas.

   The last webinar on odour management organized by the APEA was very interesting. After all the presentations, Mr. Nuno Lacasta, president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) announced that The Portuguese Environment Agency is now undertaking the preparation of a Guidance toolkit for odour management and control in Portugal.

   According to Mr. Lacasta "This guideline will be based on activities risk assessment and corresponding management plans that identify odour mitigation measures adapting them to technical progress and also to citizen input." In addition he mentioned that they have drawn upon the experience of several European countries in a way that allows for this to be a path that they start to undertake in a comprehensive manner, in Portugal.