[The French Airborne Pollen Network: current situation and prospects for improvement]

The french network of aeropalynology includes traps very close together and vast areas without any trap as well. A study was launched in order to optimise this network, without the number of traps increasing too much. Five criteria are successively reviewed to rationalise the spatial cover. Equi-distance of sites has to be balanced by the number of concerned people. But the need for having long time series is incentive to delete only as a last resort the traps which are reliable for a long time. Moreover, apart from the general network, some local or regional features make indispensable a trap in such-and-such a place (health resort), or justify a higher density of traps in such-and-such an area (the Rhône-Alpes concerning ragweed, the Mediterranean South concerning cypress).