Development and evaluation of emission disaggregation models for the spatial distribution of non-industrial combustion atmospheric pollutants

The aim of the present work is to define top-down approaches to allocate atmospheric emissions from non-industrial combustion plants (residential, institutional and commercial sectors) to a detailed grid system of 100 × 100 m2. The conceptual model adopted permits the use of suitable proxy variables for the scaling down of atmospheric emissions from a provincial to a local scale. ‘Resident population’, ‘building volume’ and a statistical combination of both have been used as proxy variables for realizing three emission disaggregation models. The choice of the proxy variables was influenced by both data availability and relevance. The results of the emission disaggregation models have been compared with emission values resulting from a bottom-up approach starting from local data. The selected case study was located in the Emilia-Romagna Region (NE Italy), and NOx was the reference pollutant.