The impact of shipping emissions to urban air quality in Europe – Detailed port-city analysis

Report no. 2/23: The report presents the results from a recent project Concawe conducted with TNO that used modelling to assess the influence of shipping emissions on the air quality in 19 selected European cities with or near major ports.

Main findings of the study show that:

• International Shipping contributes significantly to NO₂ concentrations in Europe (18% on average).
• Lower but still considerable contribution to other species (11% for SO₂, 5% for PM₅ and 3% for PM₁₀).
• Locally in the seaports, the influence to NO₂ concentrations is higher and reaches up to 60% (e.g., case of Rotterdam).
• The contribution to NO₂ remains significant in all cities located nearby the seaports.
• In many cases, international shipping can be the dominant NO₂ source compared to other sectors (e.g., Piraeus, Hamburg)
• Inland shipping has generally a low influence (0-4%) to NO₂, with only a few exceptions (Rotterdam, Amsterdam).