Emilia-Romagna Regional Integrated Air Plan
TerrAria was involved in the drafting of the new Regional Integrated Air Plan with time horizon 2030 and the related Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) on behalf of the Emilia-Romagna Region, providing its consolidated experience and actively collaborating with the regional referents.
The PAIR 2030 of Emilia-Romagna, approved by resolution of the Legislative Assembly no. 152 of 30 January 2024 and in force since 6 February 2024, the date of publication in BURERT no. 34, aims at identifying concrete actions to comply with air quality standards and to reduce pollutant emissions in the regional territories, in compliance with the provisions of the European Directive 2008/50/EC and the legislative decree 155/2010 transposing it. The Plan is committed to complying with the limit values for the most critical pollutants indicated by the regulations, intervening promptly to reduce emissions of both primary pollutants and precursors of secondary pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NOX, SO2, NH3, VOCs) and to prevent acute pollution episodes by suppressing local peaks.
The planned interventions focus on the main emission sectors such as transport, energy, industry, agriculture and zootechny. In particular, the Plan provides for:
- The strengthening of public transport by road and rail together with the renewal of the bus fleet and incentives for the transport of goods by rail.
- Incentives for the replacement of obsolete biomass plants with state-of-the-art plants, as well as the introduction of a temperature limit of 19°C for homes, offices and meeting places, and 17°C for commerce and industry. The installation and use of biomass systems for domestic heating in lowland areas is also regulated.
- The gradual upgrading of business techniques to reduce emissions by continuing to promote agreements at local or territorial level.
- Funding will be provided for covering livestock effluent storage tanks, improving the efficiency of storage systems and slurry and fertiliser spreading techniques, with the obligation to bury livestock effluents within 12 hours of spreading.
The PAIR 2030 also includes the extension of the actions, in addition to the local scale, to the Po basin and a significant expansion of the municipalities involved, reaching 207, compared to 22 in the previous Plan.
THE ROLE OF TERRARIA
TerrAria has contributed to outlining and assessing the PAIR 2030 measures, providing support to the regional technicians and ARPAE experts responsible for the Plan, through its distinctive modelling approach.
In particular, the specialist support activities provided by TerrAria included the definition and assessment of a trend scenario and a “theoretical” scenario to 2030 through the use of the RIAT+ tool, the determination of priority activities and, finally, the cost-benefit analysis of the Plan measures.
RIAT+ is an integrated assessment and decision support software (DSS) designed to assist regional decision-makers in selecting the most effective technologies for reducing emissions to improve air quality at optimal cost. The tool has been tested and applied in different European regions and with different specific objectives. In the specific case of the PAIR 2030 of the Emilia-Romagna region, RIAT+ was used in ‘optimisation’ mode to assess the effectiveness of the measures (both technical and non-technical) included in the Plan.
