Understanding transboundary air pollution network: Emissions, depositions and spatio-temporal distribution of pollution in European region

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is the structural analysis of source-receptor air pollution problems in the EU region. Two views are provided for the analysis: an emission-driven view and a deposition-driven view. Different visualization modules are used to reproduce the global pollution network and identify the biggest sources and sinks of pollution. Visual modelling helps to understand the linkages and interconnections in the transboundary pollution network. Our interactive outputs give the options to bring out the crucial actions of the global source-receptor air pollution scheme and highlight the top emitters or receptors of pollution. Ranking of countries in decreasing order of pollution responsibility and/or vulnerability using graph metrics is a main result. Data sources are emissions-depositions (or source-receptor) tables of air pollutants, available online from the data repository of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe. In our computer-based visual analysis, we design custom visualizations by writing code. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.