Information System for Air Pollutants Emissions Inventories on Local Level

The paper illustrates the Information System for Air Pollutants Emissions Inventories on Local Level in some Italian provinces. The system features the storage, management, printing and representation on the territory of data regarding air pollutants emissions. After a short description of the methodology for the realization of emissions inventories on local level, the paper discusses the topics of the space-time representation of the emissions, paying particular attention to those aspects that are of fundamental importance for the realization of the information system. Once the informative needs have been outlined, the architecture of the information system is defined; particularly the innovative aspects of the planning of the databases contained in the information system. In this context a particular attention is given to the structure of metadata, meaning those data on data that allow the selection and aggregation of emissions by hierarchic aggregations of activities, fuels and territorial units. Afterwards the needs linked to the necessity to represent the emissions in a cartographic form are debated; particularly, the integration of raster and vectorial graphics and the topics of the temporal cartographic representation. Keyword Codes: H.2.8; H.5.2; J.m