• RI-URBANS publishes the first anthropogenic emission dataset, covering road transport exhaust and non-exhaust emissions and the distribution over Europe and pilot cities.

• The dataset includes main air pollutants, as well as ultrafine particles.

The RI-URBANS project has just published the first dataset of anthropogenic emissions, which has been made available to the project users.

The emission inventory comprises both the main air pollutants included in CAMS-REG (CH4, CO, NH3, NMVOC, NOX, SO2, PM10 and PM2.5) as well as ultrafine particles, expressed as particle number emissions. The dataset also provides emissions at a spatial resolution of 6x6km2 over Europe, including the pilot cities.

The dataset also includes non-exhaust vehicle particulate matter (those from the brake and tire wear) in the European Emission Inventory. These results can be used by modelers to show the spatial and temporal variability of the pollutants, improve exposure data, and perform sensitivity analyses to evaluate the effect of specific policy actions.

Emissions of PM2.5 distributed in space at 6×6 km2 resolution over Europe. The main emission sources are small combustion (mainly residential heating), transport, and industry. Source: Jeroen Kuenen, Antoon Visschedijk, Dick Heslinga (TNO)

Developed by the Netherlands Organisation for applied scientific research (TNO), the spatially explicit emission inventory used by the air quality modellers at the European scale is enhanced by including improved estimates for road transportation. This makes the inventories for exhaust and for particulate matter from non-exhaust more accurate and consistent.

The gridded emissions are now available on TNO’s FTP site. To get access, the best option is to use a dedicated FTP client to transfer data after requesting access to TNO’s contact point.

Protocols and a contact person can be found in the corresponding Milestone M13 (M3.2):