Variation of atmospheric emissions within the road transport sector in Italy between 1990 and 2016

Gianluca Iarocci; Rosario Andrea Cocchiara; Cristina Sestili; Angela Del Cimmuto; Giuseppe La Torre

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.304

Variation of atmospheric emissions within the road transport sector in Italy between 1990 and 2016

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Nov 20:692:1276-1281. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.304. Epub 2019 Jul 19.

Authors

Gianluca Iarocci¹, Rosario Andrea Cocchiara², Cristina Sestili³, Angela Del Cimmuto³, Giuseppe La Torre³

Affiliations

¹ Department for Environmental Assessment, Monitoring and Sustainability, Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Rome 00144, Italy.
² Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University, Rome 00185, Italy. Electronic address: rosario.cocchiara@uniroma1.it.
³ Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University, Rome 00185, Italy.

PMID: 31539959
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.304

Abstract

The concentration of road transport emissions impacts on air quality, is responsible for climate change and increases the average temperatures. The aim of this study was to analyze the trends of atmospheric emissions within the road transport sector in Italy between 1990 and 2016. A principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out to investigate the pollutants that showed similar trends over time. The Kendall's rank correlation coefficient was studied to establish the statistically dependent variables. Finally, a joinpoint regression analysis was performed to evaluate the time-trends of pollutants' emissions. The Pearson's correlation coefficients were positive for all pollutants except for CO₂, that demonstrated an inverse relationship with CH₄ (-0.07), NOx (-0.089) and NMVOC (-0.128); NO₂ demonstrated inverse relationship with all other pollutants. According to the main component analysis, most pollutants were assimilable in their behavior, except for NO₂, CO2 and N₂O. The joinpoint analysis describes a general decrease of emissions over time with exception of N₂O, NO₂ and CO₂, that showed different trends. This study shows that road traffic-related emissions in Italy, between 1990 and 2016, recorded significant reductions for most of the recorded pollutants. However, CO₂ and N₂O maintained a stable trend while NO₂ showed an increasing trend.

Keywords: Climate change; Emissions; Greenhouse gases; Pollution.