Quality of emission inventory data: a European perspective

摘要

Emission inventories have been, and still are being, compiled within a broad range of national and international activities. The quality of the data in the inventories however is often not defined or not known. This paper concentrates on this aspect of European scale inventories and will present some examples from the field. The inventories are collected for different purposes: some are compiled to fulfil international obligations (UNFCCP, UN/ECE EMEP) and others as inputs for scientific analyses and in many cases using air pollution models. The intended use of the inventory will influence the appraisal of its quality to a great extent. Scientific users will mainly be interested in the accuracy, whereas a country delivering data to international organisations will be mostly interested in whether or not these organisations will be convinced of the countries compliance with the obligations. This paper will discuss quality aspects of emission inventories and emission compilation procedures against this background. It will describe a compilation procedure that ensures the collection of national emission inventories in Europe with known quality. It will also propose developments of tools and methods to further improve inventory quality with respect to both policy related and scientific applications.