Air pollutant emissions in Finland

Emission inventory

Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) maintains air pollutant emission inventories and acts as the National Inventory Agency in reporting under the UN ECE Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention (CLRTAP) and the EU National Emissions Ceilings Directive (NECD). The annual inventories cover emissions from all sources in Finland’s territory.

• The emissions database (ceip.at)
• Data centre of the European Environmnet Agency (eea.europa.eu)

Air pollutant emissions are acidifying compounds, particles, volatile and persistent organic compounds and heavy metals. The air pollutant emission inventory is carried out according to the Guidebook by the EMEP and the European Environment Agency. Emissions presented on this webpage are based on Finland’s annual official reports to the CLRTAP and to the EU. The reports:

• EMEP - European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme
• EEA's inventory guidebook 2019 (eea.europa.eu)

Impacts to the environment

Impacts of air pollution to the environment are monitored through measuring emission deposits and environmental concentrations. There are air quality target values and the emissions are regulated through restrictions in legislation and international conventions. Information about air quality in Finland is available on Finnish Meteorological Institute’s website.

Time series and emission source tools, maps and tables

Emission data can be searched using tools for time series and emission sources, on map and in tables and can also be downloaded as files. The data can be searched since 1990 in the following groups of emission sources: total emissions (all sources), energy production and industry, transport, agriculture, other energy production (e.g. heating of commercial, public and residential buildings, small scale wood combustion) and products and waste. In the tool emissions in table format more detailed sources are presented (sc. NFR classification).

Air pollutants by group

Emmissions by pollutants 1990-2022

Emission map

On the map you can select the year, the source, the pollutant and the municipality or an EMEP-grid cell which on Finland’s latitude correspond to appr. 7 km*11 km in area. You can zoom the map to specify the location. Pointing the grid or the municipality shows the emissions of your selections. For municipalities also emissions per area (e.g. tons/km²) are shown, and you can download emissions from the selected municipality in csv format. Air quality in Finland is generally good although air pollution may temporarily deteriorate the air quality.

Note! The map does not show information on air quality. Air quality information is available on the website of Finnish Meteorological Institute.

To the right there is the intensity classification legend describing the emission levels in the map. The legend is scaled according to the total emissions of the specific pollutant, thus the absolute emission levels vary from those of acidifying substances and particles (kilotons) to those of heavy metals and persistent organic compounds (tons, kilograms or grams).

Above the map there is information about emission sources included as well as about the share of the source of total emissions. Emissions by more detailed sources is presented in the tool ”Emissions in Table Format”. In case your selection includes data reported by plants, the share of emissions reported by the operators of the total emissions is shown. The operators have obligations in the environmental permits to report on emissions to the authorities. Emissions from those plants that have obligations to report emissions in their environmental permits can be searched in EEA’s E-PRTR service.

Emissions in table format

Emissions can be searched by pollutant, year and emission source.