National Inventory of road transport emissions and provincial data breakdown
Estimates of emissions from road transport made by ISPRA are the official source of reference at international level, due to the Institute's role as responsible of the annual implementation of the national inventory of emissions into the atmosphere, a monitoring tool of the international commitments made on atmosphere protection, such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Geneva Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (UNECE-CLRTAP), the European Directive on emissions limiting.
The considerable demand for mobility of people and goods by road gives relevance to the problem of pollution from road transport, especially given the impact on urban areas, with respect to pollutants such as carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (particularly benzene), nitrogen oxides and particulates. Besides, the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is particularly high for the emissions of carbon dioxide.
Starting from the national inventory, a provincial one is created through a top-down approach.This methodology involves the use of so-called proxy variables related to the activity of emission sources and whose values are known both at national and provincial level.
Three different methods of spatial disaggregation of national road traffic emissions are applied at the provincial level (top-down approach) and different methodologies are compared.