PRTRval: a software tool for the validation of E-PRTR emissions data

The European pollutant release and transfer register (E-PRTR) is the Europe-wide emissions register that provides accessible environmental information about industrial facilities. Reporting of E-PRTR data to the European Commission requires that the member states assess the quality of their data. The errors and omissions in these data should be detected during the review process and corrected, claiming accurate and additional information to the industrial sources. In order to validate E-PRTR data, PRTRval software tool was developed and applied to the Galician industrial facilities. It provides a systematic procedure for the validation of emissions, based on a bottom-up approach to obtain a reference inventory that combines both standard and specific emission factors, and the activity factors yearly reported. The application of this validation procedure to the air pollutants 2010 E-PRTR dataset in Galicia shows that 54% of the emissions need correction or complementary information. The lack of information represented 24% of the errors.