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E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

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The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 2 on ending hunger and malnutrition.

SDG 2 - among other things - seeks for sustainable and resilient food production systems. Ammonia (NH3) is a colourless, pungent-smelling and corrosive gas that is produced by the decay of organic vegetable matter and from the excrement of humans and animals. When released into the atmosphere, ammonia contributes to the level of air pollution. The agricultural sector continues to be the overwhelming contributor to ammonia emissions in the EU.

Measures implemented under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Water Framework Directive has lead to EU reductions of ammonia emissions from agriculture since the 1990s. Specifically, measures to change agricultural practices brought about reductions in the use of nitrogenous fertilisers and reduced livestock density per hectare across the EU-15.

The indicator measures the amount of ammonia (NH3) emissions as a result of the agricultural production.

The EU inventory on air pollution compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA) under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention) is fully consistent with national air pollution inventories compiled by the EU Member States.

Ammonia emissions per hectare are calculated using the total utilised agricultural area (UAA) of the relevant year as denominator.

tonnes and kg per hectare utilised agricultural area (UAA)

Calendar year

See link to the related metadata of the data source.

EEA (NECD/CLRTAP)

Data source: Reporting under National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD) and Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)

Data provider: European Environment Agency

Every year

Data are disseminated annually.

T+2 years

New data points are disseminated within two years after the reference year (EEA publishes data 18 months after the reference year).

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States respectively other presented countries.

> 10 years

Presented time series starts in 1990.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

See table  sdg_02_60

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

See also Agri-environmental indicator (AEI) fact sheet on ammonia emission under http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Agri-environmental_indicator_-_ammonia_emissions

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