Emission inventories are used for various policy-making purposes, such as characterization of temporal emission trends, emissions budgeting for regulatory and compliance purposes, and the prediction of ambient pollutant concentration using air quality models. Failure to account for variability and uncertainty in emission inventories may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding source apportionment, compliance with emission standards, emission trends, and the impact of emissions on air quality. Variability is the heterogeneity of values of a quantity with respect to time, space, or across a population while uncertainty arises due to lack of knowledge about the true value of a quantity. The sources of variability and uncertainty are distinct and hence variability and uncertainty affect policy- making in different ways. For example, variability in emissions arises from differences in operating conditions among different power plants.
Uncertainty arises due to measurement errors, systematic errors, and random sampling errors.
However, it is not possible to reduce variability. Therefore, in this research variability and uncertainty are treated separately. A methodology for simultaneous characterization of variability and uncertainty in emission and activity factors and their propagation through an emission inventory model is described. Variability was characterized using probability distributions developed on the basis of data analysis. The uncertainty due to random sampling error was characterized using parametric bootstrap simulation.