Air pollutant emissions — EEA datasets
The EEA maintains a number of datasets containing estimates of the amount of air pollutants emitted into the atmosphere from different anthropogenic (human-made) sources. Natural sources of emissions (which generally cannot be controlled by policy measures) are not usually included in the data reported by countries. The emissions data held by EEA are based on official data calculated and reported by countries. Other emission estimates are also available from scientific and research projects, see our external links for examples.
Air pollutant emissions data are expressed in mass units i.e. the amount (mass) of an air pollutant emitted by a particular source (or combination of sources). Information on air quality monitoring data (i.e. the measured concentrations of air pollutants once they have mixed and dispersed in the atmosphere — the air we breathe) can be found here: EEA's public air quality database.
Links to datasets and where available the accompanying dataviewers (for easy online visualisation and querying of the datasets) are provided below.
1. National emissions reported to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention)
The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) is the successor to the earlier EPER European-wide register of industrial emissions. Launched in November 2009, the E-PRTR website provides users with access to information from some 28,000 industrial facilities concerning the annual amounts of pollutants released to air, water and land, as well as off-site transfers of waste and of pollutants in waste water. E-PRTR contains annual data for 91 pollutants including greenhouse gases, heavy metals, pesticides and dioxins covering 65 economic activities across Europe. Data are available for the EU-27 Member States as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia and Switzerland.
E-PRTR also now includes a set of 32 maps showing the spatial distribution of air pollutant emissions from certain 'diffuse' sources (e.g. road transport, households etc). The data is available on a scale of 5 by 5 km, for nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), carbon monoxide (CO), ammonia (NH3), carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate matter (PM10). The maps can be viewed through the E-PRTR website, or downloaded from here.
Member States reported detailed plant data in December 2007 under the requirements of the Large Combustion Plant Directive (Annex VIII.B). This dataset contains emissions of NOx, SO2 and dust (total particulate matter) for years 2004-2006 for combustion plants that fall within the scope of the Directive - i.e. those whose rated thermal input is equal to or greater than 50 MW. Information on fuel use for the specific plants is also provided (except for certain individual MS which have requested this information be withheld from publication for reasons of confidentiality).
A list is also available here of older, coal-fired power plants that have opted out of fitting updated emissions abatement systems under the LCP Directive (Article 4.4). Such plants must close within 20,000 operating hours of 1 January 2008 or before 2016 - whichever is the sooner.
For references, please go to www.eea.europa.eu/soer or scan the QR code.
This briefing is part of the EEA's report The European Environment - State and Outlook 2015. The EEA is an official agency of the EU, tasked with providing information on Europe's environment.
PDF generated on 25 May 2016, 02:33 AM