EDGARv4.tox1 Emission Maps

In the EDGARv4.tox1, mercury emissions are disaggregated by sector and gridded

emission data files are provided in two formats: netCDF (in kg/m2/s) and .txt (in t/cell). The

EDGARv4.tox1 contains 0.10x0.10 emission gridmaps of total mercury and mercury species

from 1970-2008. The emissions of total mercury (Hg), gaseous elemental mercury (Hg_G),

gaseous oxidized mercury (Hg_D) and particle bound mercury (Hg_P) are aggregated by

sector as following: 1. Cement production (cement); 2. Chlor-alkali industry, mercury cell

technology (chlor); 3. Combustion in power generation and in industry (comb_power_ind);

4. Combustion in residential and other (comb_res_oth); 5. Artisanal and small-scale gold

production (gold_A); 6. Large scale gold production (gold_L); 7. Iron and steel production (iro);

8. Production of Zn, Cu, Pb and Hg (nfe_oth) and 9. Solid waste incineration and agricultural

waste burning (waste). Complete documentation is provided in the paper: Trend analysis

from 1970 to 2008 and model evaluation of EDGARv4 global gridded anthropogenic mercury

emissions.

The Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides a time-series of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived atmospheric pollutants from 1970 to 2008. Mercury is included in EDGARv4.tox1, thereby enriching the spectrum of multi-pollutant sources in the database. With an average annual growth rate of 1.3% since 1970, EDGARv4 estimates that the global mercury emissions reached 1287 tonnes in 2008. Specifically, gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) (Hg0) accounted for 72% of the global total emissions, while gaseous oxidised mercury (GOM) (Hg2 +) and particle bound mercury (PBM) (Hg-P) accounted for only 22% and 6%, respectively. The less reactive form, i.e., Hg0, has a long atmospheric residence time and can be transported long distances from the emission sources. The artisanal and small-scale gold production, accounted for approximately half of the global Hg0 emissions in 2008 followed by combustion (29%), cement production (12%) and other metal industry (10%). Given the local-scale impacts of mercury, special attention was given to the spatial distribution showing the emission hot-spots on gridded 0.1° × 0.1° resolution maps using detailed proxy data. The comprehensive ex-post analysis of the mitigation of mercury emissions by end-of-pipe abatement measures in the power generation sector and technology changes in the chlor-alkali industry over four decades indicates reductions of 46% and 93%, respectively. Combined, the improved technologies and mitigation measures in these sectors accounted for 401.7 tonnes of avoided mercury emissions in 2008. A comparison shows that EDGARv4 anthropogenic emissions are nearly equivalent to the lower estimates of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)'s mercury emissions inventory for 2005 for most sectors. An evaluation of the EDGARv4 global mercury emission inventory, including mercury speciation, was performed using the GEOS-Chem global 3-D mercury model. The model can generally reproduce both spatial variations and long-term trends in total gaseous mercury concentrations and wet deposition fluxes.