Methodology

The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides global past and present day anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants by country and on spatial grid.
This section presents the general principles of EDGAR such as emissions calculation per source categories with a generic approach consistently applied for all world countries and with geographic distribution to the place of emission. Main characteristics of EDGAR are:

1. Calculation of emissions using a technology based emission factor approach consistently applied for all world countries.
   Emissions (EM) for a country C are calculated for each compound x on an annual basis (y) and sector wise (for i sectors, multiplying on the one hand the country-specific activity data (AD), quantifying the human activity for each of the i sectors, with the mix of j technologies (TECH) for each sector i, and with their abatement percentage by one of the k end-of-pipe (EOP) measures for each technology j, and on the other hand the country-specific emission factor (EF) for each sector i and technology j with relative reduction (RED) of the uncontrolled emission by installed abatement measure k, as summarized in the following formula:

   

2. Consistent set of activity data for calculating various substances, greenhouse gases and air pollutants, important for UNFCCC, CLRTAP and the co-benefits of air quality and climate policies.
   Emissions are calculated for the following substances:
   • Direct greenhouse gases: Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC-23, 32, 125, 134a, 143a, 152a, 227ea, 236fa, 245fa, 365mfc, 43-10-mee), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs: CF4, C2F6, C3F8, c-C4F8, C4F10, C5F12, C6F14, C7F16), Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6), Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3) and Sulfuryl Fluoride (SO2F2).
   • Ozone precursor gases: Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOC) and Methane (CH4).
   • Acidifying gases: Ammonia (NH3), Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Sulfur Dioxide (SO2).
   • Primary particulates: Fine Particulate Matter (PM10 and PM2.5 and Carbonaceous speciation (BC, OC).
   • Mercury: total mercury (Hg) and mercury forms: Gaseous Elemental Mercury (Hg0), Particle-bound Mercury (Hg-P) and Gaseous Oxidised Mercury (Hg2+).
   • Stratospheric Ozone Depleting Substances: Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11, 12, 113, 114, 115), Halons (1211, 1301, 2402), Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC-22, 124, 141b, 142b), Carbon Tetrachloride (CCl4), Methyl Bromide (CH3Br) and Methyl Chloroform (CH3CCl2).
3. Spatial allocation of emissions on 0.1 degree by 0.1degree grid cells.
   A geographical database was built using spatial proxy datasets with the location of energy and manufacturing facilities, road networks, shipping routes, human and animal population density and agricultural land use, that vary over time. The input datasets where point, line and area grids at various resolutions and using GIS techniques for conversion, resampling and aggregation the dataset have been included on a 0.1°x0.1° grid. National sector totals are then distributed with the given percentages of the spatial proxies over the country's area.
4. Availability of annual and monthly sector-specific emissions timeseries from 1970 onwards.
   Input to EDGAR are international annual statistics, that are collected from 1970 onwards till year t-1 for CO2 and with 2 or even 4 years delay for other greenhouse gases respectively air pollutants and particulate matter. On the latest available year, sector- and region-specific monthly profiles are applied to generate global monthly emission gridmaps.