Spatial High-Resolution Mapping of National Emissions

Abstract

Spatial distribution of emissions is a key element in assessing human exposure to air pollution through use of dispersion modelling. The quality of the spatial emission mapping is crucial for the quality, applicability and reliability of modelled air pollution levels, estimated human exposure, incurred health effects and related costs; all very important information for policy makers in decisions of implementation of environmental policies and measures. The purpose of the MapEIre project, funded by Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency, is to develop a high-resolution spatial mapping of the Irish emission inventory. The work is state-of-the-art and combines a large amount of statistical data with detailed spatial information to allow for a complete spatial emission mapping on a 1 kilometre by 1-kilometre resolution. The spatial model is developed as an integrated database system focusing on user-friendliness and performance optimisation. The spatial model for Ireland integrates official statistics, such as the Irish emission inventory, and censuses of population, housing and agriculture, with a large number of spatial datasets as diverse as heat demand, building use, road network and land cover maps, selected through a comprehensive assessment of available spatial data. The model covers 32 pollutants and 177 sectors and includes the entire Irish exclusive economic zone. The methodology developed and the lessons learned will be of great benefit to other countries, which are embarking to develop high-resolution spatial emission distributions. The detailed spatial distribution of emissions can be used by policy makers on both national and local level in decision making and prioritising of environmental measures. Further, it allows for a more detailed regulation, implementing measures targeting areas where emissions are highest, allowing for more cost-effective initiatives on local, regional and national scale.

Early-Life Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution from Multiple Sources and Asthma Incidence in Children: A Nationwide Birth Cohort Study from Denmark

“…The Danish emission inventory used in our modeling system is of exceptionally high quality based on detailed registration of traffic on the entire Danish street network 41 and other sources of air pollution. 42 The two other models in our modeling system, DEHM and UBM, include the emissions from all sources, including also a large range of nontraffic sources, such as industry, households (including wood stoves), agricultural, or natural emissions. The accuracy of the predictions for those models can be described by evaluating the model output with measurements at rural or urban background locations with only minor traffic contribution.…”

Influence of improved methodology and increased spatial resolution on gridded emissions

“…The allocation of the national total emissions is based on a large number of spatial distribution keys (GeoKeys), which are normalised tables holding the shares of the national total emission for a given sector and a given pollutant, to be allocated to the individual cells in a pre-defined grid. A description of the GeoKeys, including the methodology and the underlying spatial input data, is provided in Plejdrup et al [27].…”

Nitrogen deposition in the UK at 1 km resolution from 1990 to 2017

“…fertiliser application rates, stocking densities) and emission source strength data from the UK emissions inventories for agriculture (e.g. Brown et al, 2019;Richmond et al, 2019). Emission estimates are output for each individual emission source at a 10 km × 10 km grid resolution, which are spatially disaggregated to a 1 km × 1 km grid resolution using land cover data (Rowland et al, 2017) and methods outlined in Dragosits et al (1998), Hellsten et al (2008) and Carnell et al (2019a).…”