The revised EMEP/EEA Guidebook compared to the country specific inventory system in the Netherlands

Parties to the LRTAP convention have agreed to annually report atmospheric emissions and are required to set up an emission inventory. As a minimum, parties shall use the latest version of the EMEP/EEA Air Pollutant Inventory Guidebook, but most countries – including the Netherlands – have set up their own inventory, which uses country specific information to supplement the information from the Guidebook. In this study, emissions estimated within the Dutch Emission Inventory are compared to emissions estimated using Guidebook emission factors and Dutch statistics for the year 2005. The objective is to explore the quality of both methods and to find major differences and similarities. The comparison shows that for most sources, emission estimates are within uncertainty ranges for both methodologies, especially for sources where a higher Tier (more detailed) methodology is used to estimate the emissions. This is in line with the Guidelines which indicate that for key categories a more detailed methodology should be used. The comparison also shows some surprising differences, such as large differences in emission factors (especially Tier 1) and missing sources (fireworks and abrasion of railway overhead wires, causing 16% of total copper emissions in the Netherlands) which have not been included in the Guidebook. This comparison is shown to be a useful tool to identify areas where improvements and further research are necessary.