Estimation of shipping emissions using vessel Long Range Identification and Tracking data

Shipping is a growing source of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, which are emitted mainly over an international territory, the seas, for which only shared responsibility by all countries is felt. The international community, in particular the International Maritime Organisation, is called to look for appropriate mitigation of these emissions. This starts with the reporting of emissions in an inventory and its mapping over the international territory to be able to then evaluate the effect of emission reduction policies on the environment. Under the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme, Member States are required to provide gridded emissions for the different sectors but the spatial allocation of ship emissions requires a supranational setup to avoid transboundary inconsistencies. By using vessel density maps extracted from historical Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) data, accurate high-resolution maps of emissions can be obtained in support of policy development, implementation and monitoring in the interrelated fields of air quality and climate.

航运业已成为大气污染物与温室气体的日益增长的排放源，其排放主要发生在国际海域，对此类排放的治理责任唯有依靠各国共同承担方能有效落实。国际社会，尤其是国际海事组织（International Maritime Organisation），亟需寻求针对此类排放的妥善减排方案。此项工作的起点在于建立排放清单报告机制，并在国际海域绘制排放分布图，以此为基础评估减排政策对环境的影响。根据《欧洲监测与评估计划》（European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme），欧盟成员国需提交各行业的网格化排放数据，但船舶排放的空间分配工作需要超国家层面的统筹机制，以避免跨界数据不一致的问题。通过从历史远程识别与跟踪（Long Range Identification and Tracking, LRIT）数据中提取的船舶密度图，可生成精准的高分辨率排放地图，以助力空气质量与气候这两大相关领域的政策制定、实施与监测工作。