A high resolution emissions inventory of Argentina for air quality estimation

PULIAFITO, S. ENRIQUE; BOLAÑO-ORTIZ, TOMÁS; PASCUAL, ROMINA; LÓPEZ NOREÑA, ANA; BERNÁ, LUCAS

Santiago de Chile

Conferencia; The Global Emissions Initiative (GEIA). 19th Conference GEIA Santiago de Chile 2019; 2019

GEIA-Universidad de Chile

We present a high-resolution spatially disaggregated emissions inventory (0.025°× 0.025° horizontal resolution), of Argentina updated to 2016. It includes 9 sectors: public generation of electricity, oil refineries, cement production, transport (maritime, air, rail and road), residential and commercial, manure management, biomass burning (agricultural waste burning and forest fire); soil crops, grazing and use of fertilizers; and 10 species: greenhouse gases (CO , CH , N O), ozone precursors (CO, NOx, VOC) and air quality pollutants ( SO , NH , PM10, and PM2.5). The main contribution of this work is an improved geographical allocation of the pollutant sources using detailed bottom-up approaches. Considering the sources of greenhouse gases emissions the total reaches 276 Tg CO2eq, from which manure management sector emits 80 Tg (29%), followed by transportation sector: 55 Tg (20%), residential + commercial + small industries: 53 Tg (19%), electricity generation + fugitives: 48 Tg (17%), biomass burning + urban waste: 20 Tg (7%), agriculture: 11 Tg (4%) and refinery + cement production: 8 Tg (3%). Analyzed by extension (per square km), the largest impact is in medium and densely populated urban areas reaching more than 297 Mg/km of ozone precursors gases and 11.5 Mg/km for other air quality emissions. A comparison with EDGAR global emission database shows that although the total country emissions are similar for several sub sectors and pollutants, its spatial distribution is not appropriate for Argentina. The road and residential transport emissions represented by EDGAR result in an overestimation of emissions in rural areas and an underestimation of urban areas, especially in more densely populated area. The distribution of methane emissions from manure management by EDGAR follows the administrative political divisions rather than the land use type.