BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

The second purpose of emission data is to evaluate the development of emissions which
are to be limited according to international agreements reached in HELCOM, ECE or
PARCOM.
Therefore EGAP has recently proposed a work plan for 1993-1997 which has as one of its
main points the establishment of emission inventories with a focus on the Baltic Sea states.
The work will be carried out within the framework of international cooperation because in
recent years HELCOM, ECE and PARCOM and other organisations, notably the European
Communities, EC have agreed on common guidelines and procedures to set up emission
inventories. This will ensure that the inventories are of good and equal quality and that
they can be compared from nation to nation.
One of the major achievements is that these guidelines now specify that pollution sources
should be classified in the 11 categories listed in Table 3. Another example of how
emissions are to be reported is shown in Table 4. Here emissions are given not only by
category but also by geographical location as specified by the coordinates of an element of
the European gridnet used for model calculations.
Cooperation within HELCOM
There is a strong need for coordination and exchange of information between the various
committees and groups that have been set up by HELCOM. In the case of EGAP several
groups need the information EGAP can provide on the levels and depositions of pollutants
in the Baltic Sea, the development in time and the geographic distribution. But EGAP also
needs information from other HELCOM groups. In particular there is a need to gather
information on emissions that are provided in some of these other groups. As an example
the Maritime Committee has set up an air pollution group MC AIR that has been given the
task to collect emission data from ships travelling the Baltic Sea. Emissions from ships
have in fact been found to be an important air pollution source for the oceans and coastal
areas. That information is therefore very important for obtaining good model results over
the open sea.
Another example is information on industrial processes and the technological possibilities
to reduce their emissions. That information is accumulated by the Technological Committe
and its subgroups on point and diffuse sources TC POINT and TC DIFF and it is impor-
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