title: Air emission inventories in North America: a critical assessment.
abstract: Although emission inventories are the foundation of air quality management and have supported substantial improvements in North American air quality, they have a number of shortcomings that can potentially lead to ineffective air quality management strategies. Major reductions in the largest emissions sources have made accurate inventories of previously minor sources much more important to the understanding and improvement of local air quality. Changes in manufacturing processes, industry types, vehicle technologies, and metropolitan infrastructure are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace, emphasizing the importance of inventories that reflect current conditions. New technologies for measuring source emissions and ambient pollutant concentrations, both at the point of emissions and from remote platforms, are providing novel approaches to collecting data for inventory developers. Advances in information technologies are allowing data to be shared more quickly, more easily, and processed and compared in novel ways that can speed the development of emission inventories. Approaches to improving quantitative measures of inventory uncertainty allow air quality management decisions to take into account the uncertainties associated with emissions estimates, providing more accurate projections of how well alternative strategies may work. This paper discusses applications of these technologies and techniques to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of emission inventories across North America and outlines a series of eight recommendations aimed at inventory developers and air quality management decision-makers to improve emission inventories and enable them to support effective air quality management decisions for the foreseeable future.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA. miller.andy@epa.gov
authors.forename: C Andrew
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hidy
authors.forename: Jeremy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hales
authors.forename: Charles E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Kolb
authors.forename: Arthur S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Werner
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Haneke
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Parrish
authors.forename: H Christopher
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.forename: Leonora
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rojas-Bracho
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Deslauriers
authors.forename: Bill
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pennell
authors.forename: J David
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Mobley
mesh_terms: D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational / Q000032:analysis*; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D000465:Algorithms; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004864:Equipment and Supplies; D009656:North America
chemical_list: D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational