This development has been accompanied by a reduction of the concentration of most of the pollutants in the air, demonstrating that the measures implemented at various levels made it possible to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation.

Nevertheless, the new regulations that came into force in 2005 and 2010, depending on the air pollutant involved, as well as the increased knowledge of its effects on health, make it necessary to strengthen the measures designed to improve the air quality levels in the city.

With this purpose, the government departments involved in environmental matters will increase various horizontal policies directly relating to air quality in the upcoming years. Considering the current relationship between sources of emissions and possibilities of action, these policies require a strong commitment by local government which must necessarily be supported by other regional and national measures.

The local air quality strategy combines the actions by Madrid City Council in this area and those of other institutions in the city between 2006 and 2010 to be carried out in various key aspects of the city such as limiting traffic, encouraging public transport and reducing domestic emissions, strengthening specific actions that are currently being carried out and setting new measures with this objective.

The work carried out to prepare this strategy has led to the preparation of a amount of documents which, if printed, would necessarily fill various volumes. This section summarises this wide amount of material, prepared to facilitate the publication and communication tasks required by this strategy.