Liguria Region Energy and Environment Observatory [IT]

The Energy and Environmental Observatory of Liguria Region was created in 1997 to prepare the inventory of polluting emissions. Today it’s extended to numerous environmental data and indicators. Monitoring covers energy consumptions and production, energetic and non-energetic GHG emissions and air quality. The data and indicators coming from the Regional Observatory support the Regional policy on energy and climate change and they are also relevant to the evaluation of pressure on other environmental media (water and waste)[…]. 

Website: www.banchedati.ambienteinliguria.it 

Context and rationale

The Energy and Environmental Observatory of Liguria Region has several objectives:

• Monitoring GHG emissions
•  Following up the Air Quality Plan
• Computing energy balances at different levels (regional, provincial and municipal)

Description

The monitoring covers energy consumptions and production, energetic and non-energetic GHG emissions and air quality. It does not monitor or assess local impacts of climate change. There is a link with the Regional policy on energy and climate change since the inventory produces results that are used in the planning and policies at regional level on energy and climate change issues. It represents a basic tool to implement air quality legislation and to define air quality management plans.

Starting from the observation that the base information for the realization of emission inventories is also relevant to the evaluation of pressure on other environmental media (water and waste), the system is evolving into a system for managing the pressures and more recently as a system for energy and environmental governance (APEX.com) which allows to:

• Define pollutants relevant for the different media
• Define classifications of activities relevant for the emissions
• Use data on emissions measured directly at major sources
• Estimate emissions by appropriate emission factors and data contained in Data Manager
• Manage a broad and validated database of emission factors of air pollutants and GHG
• Provide tables and thematic maps of emissions data

Main Results

The project’s aim is to allow the assessment of the environmental pressure exerted by sources of pollutants emitting to the atmosphere, both due to human activities and from natural sources. The inventory refers to the following years: 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2005. It provides insight of how the big picture has changed over years. A 2008 inventory will be soon available. Data provided can be downloaded from the website free of charge, including atmospheric emissions and pollutant information for any given year and territorial unit (i.e. region, province, municipality). Data is available for different groups of emission sources. The models for estimating atmospheric emissions are only available to authorized users (i.e. project leaders from ARPAL and Regione Liguria and some other authorized institutions).
A key feature of the tool is the possibility to compare emission data within tight deadlines.