Emission Inventories

It is critical to know what pollutant species are emitted, where their emission sources are located, and how they evolve over time to design control measures to improve air quality. Emission inventories must provide reliable information to determine the origin of both pollutants directly emitted into the atmosphere and precursor species of secondary pollutants like ozone and an important fraction of fine particles. Emissions must be spatially and temporally distributed, as well as disaggregated by chemical species to be used as input data to run atmospheric chemical-transport modelsAtmospheric chemical-transport models aimed at understanding their impact on ambient concentrations, analyzing emission reduction strategies, and forecasting air quality conditions. However, the construction of emission inventories with such characteristics is still in progress all over Southeast Asia. No country has an emissions inventory that can be used for advanced analysis or air quality modeling. Only four countries have compiled national-level lists of annual emission estimates. Local researchers and international consortia dedicated to developing global and regional emission datasets have taken up the task of building gridded emission inventories. These inventories can be used as a source of information on past and present emissions in the region.