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Summary of the first EPER Review Report
1 Objective of the Report
In June 2004 the Commission published the first review report on the implementation of a European
Pollutant Emission Register (EPER; see text box below). According to the EPER decision the European
Commission reviews the reporting process and the results of the reporting after each reporting cycle. The
first EPER Review report evaluates the reporting process and the data delivered by the 15 old Member
States, Norway and Hungary for the year 2001.
The report analyses the link between the reported emissions of pollutants and their origin (countries,
industrial activities, type (receiving media), determination methodology). Based on these evaluations,
conclusions are drawn that lead to recommendations for further improvement of the EPER data collection
and reporting process, the completeness and the quality of data for the next reporting period.
This summary provides an overview of the results.
2 The data collection and reporting process
The review has shown the following:
1) Strengths:
a) The first data set in the European Pollutant Emission Register, published in February 2004 on the
internet
i) stores emission data for 9,256 individual facilities in all Member States of the European
Union and Norway;
ii) contains 22,719 emission records for these facilities; two thirds of these are emissions to air
and one third emissions either directly or indirectly to water.
The first EPER database therefore is a large and comprehensive source of information on the
environmental pressure as caused by large and medium-sized individual facilities that will prove
its usefulness to both the general public, NGOs, industry and other lay and professional users.
b) The procedure to collect this large amount of data has worked reasonably well:
i) all Member States were able to deliver EPER data to the Commission;
ii) most Member States have established additional legislation to ensure the data flow from
individual facilities towards the authorities and the EPER reporting process;
iii) all national experts have used the tools as provided by the Commission (both the Guidance
Document and the software tools) and regard these tools as very useful;
iv) the use of the validation tool has resulted in the absolute absence of any corrupt data in the
sense of non-existing pollutants, activities or other attributes, showing that an electronic
data delivery procedure is feasible and well suited for the reporting of large amounts of
environmental data.
v) National reports on the EPER Reporting website were generated by the EEA from the
facility reports. This procedure could be also applied in future EPER reporting cycles.
2) Weaknesses
a) a) The first data set of EPER should be used with care since
i) not all Member States were able to submit complete data sets. Some countries do not report
any data for some activities, e.g. pig and poultry farms, landfills as well as surface
treatment;
ii) both facilities and national and regional authorities in the Member States had sometimes
difficulties in finding the appropriate methodology to determine the emissions of certain
pollutants;
iii) it appears that Member States have understood the quality indicators “measured”,
“estimated” or “calculated” as defined in the Guidance Document in different ways, which
hinders the interpretation of the quality of the data in the database.
b) The data collection and reporting procedure encountered a few problems and difficulties
i) some Member States indicate that actors in the data collection and reporting process need
some more experience in determining emissions and in delivering these in the formats as
requested by the EPER guidance; these problems are partly to be seen as start-up problems
that might be overcome in future reporting cycles;
ii) the EPER software tools were not always compatible with the hard- and software as
installed at the Member States’ experts desks; the software showed difficulties in older
versions and non-English versions of the Windows operating system.
3 Conclusions on the resulting data
Figure 1 and Table 1 present an overview of the amount of data collected in the first reporting cycle in
EPER. These data are described and analysed in detail in the review report.
Sum of Count
4000
3500
3000
2500
value
Facilities
2000
Emissions to Air
Emissions to Water
1500
1000
500
0
Norway
Italy
Hungary
Sweden
Germany
Austria
Finland
France
Greece
Ireland
Spain
Portugal
Netherlands
Luxembourg
Belgium
United Kingdom
Denmark
-1 0
EU15 Country
Figure 1 Number of facilities and emission reports (air and water) per country
The analyses of these data presented in the Review report lead to the following conclusions:
1) No facilities with main activity “Installations for the production of asbestos or asbestos-based
products” were reported.
2) For nine pollutants (Organotin – compounds, Chloroalkanes (C10-13), Hexachlorobenzene (HCB),
Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), Hexachlorocyclohexane(HCH), Trichloroethane-1,1,1 (TCE),
Trichlorobenzenes (TCB), Brominated diphenylether, Pentachlorophenol (PCP)) 10 or less emissions
have been reported.
3) Users of the data set as now published on the EPER website, can be quite confident that most of the
data are reasonably well representing the real emissions at facility level, although they cannot be sure
that each and every number is accurate.
4) Comparison of the data with the expected emission reports on the basis of the “sector-specific sub-lists
of pollutants” (tables 4 and 5 in the Guidance Document) shows
a) that most pollutants expected for each of the activities indeed have been reported.
b) a number of pollutants, not marked for a specific activity in the sub-lists have been reported
additionally.
This information could be used to update the sector-specific sub-lists from the Guidance Document.
Doing so however is not easy since many facilities comprise more than one activity and pollutants
reported but not marked in the sub-list for the main activity could be emitted from such additional
activities.
5) Within the framework of the review report, only a preliminary and limited analysis could be performed
on the accuracy or precision of the data.
Table 1 Overview of releases to air and water reported in EPER for each pollutant.
Air Water Direct Water Indirect
Threshold
Number Emission Threshold Air Number Emission Water Number Emission
CH4 1,287 2,277,828,000 100,000 - - - - -
CO 495 3,983,349,400 500,000 - - - - -
CO2 1,570 1,513,039,000,000 100,000,000 - - - - -
HFCs 97 975,279 100 - - - - -
N2O 418 146,425,200 10,000 - - - - -
NH3 3,016 111,269,900 10,000 - - - - -
NMVOC 793 567,161,000 100,000 - - - - -
NOx 2,161 2,958,836,360 100,000 - - - - -
PFCs 29 384,589 100 - - - - -
SF6 23 63,045 50 - - - - -
SOx 1,321 4,590,383,000 150,000 - - - - -
Total - Nitrogen - - - 315 103,283,300 50,000 159 45,705,860
Total - Phosphorus - - - 284 7,961,368 5,000 308 7,987,302
As and compounds 238 31,270 20 238 24,387 5 69 2,857
Cd and compounds 269 24,058 10 181 14,281 5 49 4,835
Cr and compounds 222 222,805 100 242 997,815 50 136 252,041
Cu and compounds 183 137,746 100 356 205,544 50 127 52,799
Hg and compounds 357 24,439 10 166 2,170 1 43 639
Ni and compounds 480 492,785 50 480 171,422 20 284 41,419
Pb and compounds 288 629,578 200 305 115,832 20 107 28,089
Zn and compounds 360 1,792,396 200 547 1,159,902 100 197 172,568
Chloroalkanes (C10-13) - - - 3 196 - 3 18
Dichloroethane-1,2 (DCE) 46 3,076,680 1,000 39 18,798 10 14 5,267
Dichloromethane (DCM) 151 6,025,650 1,000 34 100,471 10 29 13,205
Halogenated organic compounds - - - 133 3,558,121 1,000 33 229,440
Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) 3 84 10 3 14 - - -
Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) - - - 4 26 1 1 0
Hexachlorocyclohexane(HCH) - - - 3 167 - - -
PCDD+PCDF (dioxins+furans) 89 1 - - - - - -
Pentachlorophenol (PCP) 1 469 10 - - - - -
Tetrachloroethylene (PER) 34 754,250 2,000 - - - - -
Tetrachloromethane (TCM) 20 103,974 100 - - - - -
Trichlorobenzenes (TCB) 2 72 10 - - - - -
Trichloroethane-1,1,1 (TCE) 2 776 100 - - - - -
Trichloroethylene (TRI) 106 2,704,144 2,000 - - - - -
Trichloromethane 37 236,014 500 - - - - -
Benzene 220 3,968,630 1,000 - - - - -
Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes - - - 52 194,019 200 33 153,479
Brominated diphenylether - - - - - 1 1 1,400
Organotin - compounds - - - 7 2,810 50 3 521
Phenols - - - 211 369,624 20 150 958,082
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons 116 342,217 50 62 42,918 5 19 6,090
Total organic carbon (TOC) - - - 653 576,242,130 50,000 815 333,953,150
Chlorides - - - 189 17,160,682,000 2,000,000 42 971,470,000
Chlorine and inorganic compounds 403 37,574,900 10,000 - - - - -
Cyanides - - - 77 304,946 50 30 83,308
Fluorides - - - 178 11,145,750 2,000 34 424,424
Fluorine and inorganic compounds 236 10,289,723 5,000 - - - - -
HCN 34 136,618 200 - - - - -
PM10 554 149,508,655 50,000 - - - - -
Please note that the indirect emissions to water are transfers into a sewer system and typically transported to off site waste water
treatment facilities.
The first EPER data set provides all actors in the European Union with a valuable and comprehensive set of
data on individual facilities. However using these data for bench marking might be hampered by the fact
that no underlying information for the emissions (size of the facility, type of fuel used, technology applied
(BAT or other)) is available. It is obvious that a larger facility will in general emit more of the same
pollutants, whereas the implementation of BAT might decrease the emissions and the use of another fuel
might give rise to the emission of other pollutants.
EPER provides data for large and medium-sized point sources in the industrial sectors covered by the IPPC
Directive. EPER covers mainly industrial sources. It excludes for example emissions from the transport
sector and from most agricultural sources. For some air pollutants the EPER share can be assessed, whereas
for direct and indirect emissions to water it is more difficult due to a lack of pan-European data sets. As an
example: a comparison with the EU15’s total emissions of some important greenhouse gases and air
pollutants (as reported under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UNECE
Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution) shows that EPER covers around:
• 42% of EU15 total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions;
• 15% of EU15 total methane (CH4) emissions;
• 13% of EU15 total dinitrogenoxide (N2O) emissions;
• 6% of EU 15 total non-methane volatile organic carbon (NMVOC) emissions;
• 26% of EU15 total nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions and
• 70% of EU15 total sulphur oxides (SOx) emissions.
The share of emissions from all sources covered by EPER inevitably varies for each Member State,
industrial activity and pollutant.
Total air emissions data can be found at:
• EEA: http://dataservice.eea.eu.int/dataservice/,
• CLRTAP/EMEP: http://webdab.emep.int/,
• UNFCCC: http://ghg.unfccc.int/.
4 Recommendations
Over all the review report concludes that the first EPER reporting was reasonably successful, although a
number of starting-up problems have been encountered. Additional attention should be focused on the
completeness of the reports by the Member States and on the use and understanding of the emission
determination methodology.
Member States need to take action to ensure that reporting in the second EPER reporting cycle for reporting
year 2004 is fully complete. For some Member States this might mean that additional legal or other
provisions must be implemented.
The Commission might consider to improve the existing software tools to make them better portable to the
different operational systems as used by the Member States. In addition, both facilities and authorities
indicate that a better accessibility to emission determination methods is needed.
The Commission might consider in addition to the information already given in the Guidance Document to
further enhance and facilitate the information exchange with expert groups in the framework of
international conventions as are (UNECE Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollutants
(LRTAP), United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Guidelines of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) as
developed under the rhus Convention).
Whether or not the threshold values are set on such a level that indeed about 90 % of the emissions is
reported, is very difficult to assess, since emissions below the threshold are not reported and hence not
known. Further statistical analyses on the data available might give more information on this matter.
The EPER website could be improved by adding translations to the various official European Union
languages and by reviewing part of the meta-information to allow better interpretation by the general
public.
Within the framework of this report it was not possible to review the accuracy of the emission data in the
EPER database. Such a review would require additional information and efforts, whereas methods for such
a review are not readily available. The UNFCCC and LRTAP Conventions are developing methods to
review emission data reported by the parties. The applicability of such methods to the EPER data could be
investigated. In addition, the availability of more than one reporting year will enable better analyses in this
respect. The review of the next reporting cycle therefore should include an analysis of the differences
between the first and second reporting.
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