UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS

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2024-11-22 2:07
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2024 Meeting


Section: Atmosphere and Earth Science; Environment Protection


Title:
Past and recent changes in SO2 emissions in Romania: an analysis based on EDGAR database


Authors:
Alexandru Tudor (1,2), Alin Scarlat (1,2), Gabriela Iorga (3,1)


*
Affiliation:
1) University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, Bucharest, Romania

2) National Institute for Aerospace Research "Elie Carafoli" - INCAS, Bucharest, Romania

3) University of Bucharest, Faculty of Chemistry, Bucharest, Romania



E-mail
gabriela.iorga@g.unibuc.ro


Keywords:
air pollution, SO2 emissions, EDGAR, change-point analysis, trend analysis


Abstract:
In the context of the decrease of major pollutant emissions at European scale, a progressive general downward trend of SO2 emissions was evidenced in Romania. However, over the past five decades, Romania has experienced a large spectrum of economic and societal changes that involved some distinct regimes of SO2 emissions. Additionally, Romania made efforts to implement the European directives regarding industrial and power generation emissions and the use of sulfur content in fuels. Data used in the analysis were extracted from the EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/) database. In order to detect a significant change and to identify the dominant change-points in the mean of the SO2 time series, a segmentation algorithm based on dynamic programming was used. Further on, the non-parametric Mann-Kendal test and the Sen’s slope method have been used to identify and quantify the trends. This research evidences the significant changing points and point to their possible determinants. The results also show SO2 emissions changed drastically over time; changes were quantified, and compared with changes reported in other European countries. Moreover, these changes were found to be region-scale and activity-sector dependent. This study gives a relevant overview on past and recent changes and trends, which are useful for planning further cost-effective actions.