EU Air Pollution Source Apportionment Records — EEA

Keyless. Pay per record. Where Europe's air-pollution exceedances come from — regional, urban and local, by sector.

This actor turns the European Environment Agency (EEA) Air Quality Directive data flows into clean, per-record data — the source apportionment of air-pollutant exceedances: how much of a breach comes from regional background, urban background and local increment, broken down by source sector. Each run reads the EEA's keyless DiscoData SQL service and delivers one row per apportionment, structured for air-quality and policy analysis, reusable with acknowledgement of the EEA, with no personal data of any kind.

What this is, in one paragraph

When a country reports an air-quality exceedance, it also reports where the pollution came from — splitting the measured concentration into a regional background, an urban background and a local increment, each attributed to sectors such as traffic, industry, agriculture and shipping. This actor reads that source-apportionment table and delivers one record per apportionment: the country, zone and air-quality-plan identifiers, the pollutant, objective type and reporting metric, the exceedance reason, and the full REGIONAL / URBAN / LOCAL breakdown by sector — all carried as filed. It is the source-attribution layer of Europe's air-quality reporting.

Who buys this and for what job

• Air-quality analysts and city planners identifying which sectors drive exceedances in a zone.
• Environmental consultancies building abatement cases from official source attribution.
• Policy and transport teams quantifying the traffic vs industry vs transboundary split.
• Data engineers who want the AQD source-apportionment table as clean rows from a keyless source.

EEA licence — reuse with acknowledgement

One licence rider travels on every record. EEA data may be reused, including commercially, provided the source is acknowledged: "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)." Where third-party content is marked, it keeps its own terms. These are reported attributions as filed — not a model of this actor's making.

Zone / plan grain — no person data

The unit of every record is a source apportionment for an exceedance — a zone, a plan and a pollutant, never a person. Air Quality Directive reporting is at zone / plan level: there is no contact or named-individual field in the selected columns, and none is emitted. The free-text country-comment field is EXCLUDED at field selection — the query keeps only the identifiers, the coded attributes, and the numeric apportionment components. A person-key guard runs on every record as a backstop.

A note on scale, honestly

The source table holds 8,796 rows as verified by an exact COUNT(*) at build time, which matches the planning index for this category. It spans reporting countries, zones, pollutants and years. The live count above is authoritative. Some apportionment components are sparse where a country did not report a given sector — nulls are carried through as filed, not invented.

Sample output

Real rows from a live run of this actor (first 5 rows, selected columns).

One full record from the same run, exactly as delivered:

{
  "record_id": "015051ed-33a4-e511-9f2a-000d3a213c5b",
  "source_app_id": "015051ed-33a4-e511-9f2a-000d3a213c5b",
  "country_code": "PL",
  "country_name": "Poland",
  "zone_id": null,
  "attainment_id": null,
  "aq_plan_id": "0f8e96cf-32a4-e511-9f2a-000d3a213c5b",
  "air_pollutant": null,
  "objective_type": null,
  "protection_target": null,
  "reporting_metric": null,
  "reference_year": "2013",
  "reporting_year": 2013,
  "exceedance_reason": null,
  "first_exceedance_date": "2013",
  "regional_background_total": 23.5,
  "regional_background_natural": 0,
  "regional_background_transboundary": 0,
  "regional_background_other": null,
  "urban_background_total": null,
  "urban_background_traffic": 0,
  "urban_background_industrial": 0,
  "urban_background_agriculture": 0,
  "urban_background_shipping": 0,
  "local_increment_total": null,
  "local_increment_traffic": 0,
  "local_increment_industrial": 0,
  "local_increment_transboundary": 0,
  "source": "EEA Air Quality Directive data flows — exceedance source apportionment",
  "source_url": "https://discodata.eea.europa.eu/",
  "licence": "European Environment Agency (EEA) Air Quality Directive (AQD) reporting data flows. Reuse is permitted, including for commercial purposes, provided the source is acknowledged: 'Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)'. Third-party content, where marked, keeps its own terms.",
  "attribution": "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA), Air Quality Directive data flows (discodata.eea.europa.eu).",
  "disclaimer": "Source apportionment of air-pollutant exceedances reported by EU member states under the Air Quality Directive, at exceedance / apportionment grain from the EEA AQD data flows. Each record attributes the concentration to its REGIONAL background, URBAN background, and LOCAL increment components — broken down by source sector (traffic, industry, agriculture, shipping, transboundary, natural, other) VERBATIM — with the pollutant, objective type, protection target, reporting metric, exceedance reason and zone/plan identifiers. The free-text country-comment field is EXCLUDED at field selection. Zone/plan grain — there is no contact or named-individual field selected or emitted, and a person-key guard runs on every record.",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-25T17:31:29Z"
}

Pricing

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold / Platinum / Diamond
air_source_apportionment_record	$0.05	$0.045	$0.04	$0.0335

Delivered before charged. Blocked runs and empty results cost nothing.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
countryCode	string	—	Optional 2-letter country code (e.g. DE, FR).
year	integer	—	Optional reporting year to filter (e.g. 2020, 2022).
maxRecords	integer	500	Ceiling on records delivered and billed.

Output

One JSON object per apportionment. Representative example (values as reported):

{
  "record_id": "015051ed-33a4-e511-9f2a-000d3a213c5b",
  "country_code": "PL",
  "country_name": "Poland",
  "air_pollutant": "PM10",
  "objective_type": "Limit Value (LV)",
  "reporting_metric": "Days in exceedance in a calendar year",
  "exceedance_reason": "Heavily trafficked urban centre",
  "regional_background_total": 12.4,
  "urban_background_total": 9.1,
  "urban_background_traffic": 4.2,
  "local_increment_total": 18.7,
  "local_increment_traffic": 15.0,
  "source": "EEA Air Quality Directive data flows — exceedance source apportionment",
  "observed_at": "2026-08-27T00:00:00Z"
}

An unbilled RUN_RECEIPT records the robots check, the filters, rows seen and delivered, and whether charged equals delivered.

Field reference

Each record is one source apportionment. Identity: record_id, source_app_id, country_code, country_name, zone_id, attainment_id, and aq_plan_id. Context: air_pollutant, objective_type, protection_target, reporting_metric, reference_year, reporting_year, exceedance_reason, and first_exceedance_date. Apportionment: the regional_background_*, urban_background_* and local_increment_* components by sector (traffic, industrial, agriculture, shipping, transboundary, natural, other, total). Provenance travels on every record: source, source_url, licence, attribution, disclaimer, and observed_at.

How a run works

A run first re-reads the source host's robots posture from your runtime — the EEA DiscoData host — and stops at the door if that ever changes. It pages the AQD source-apportionment table (filtered to your optional countryCode and year), ordered by the high-cardinality apportionment id, and flattens each row to one record — carrying every value verbatim, never anything person-shaped and never the free-text comment — delivered before it is charged, so a blocked or empty run costs you nothing. The actor stops at your maxRecords ceiling and records charge_equals_delivered in the receipt.

Coverage and scope

The table holds 8,796 rows across countries, zones, pollutants and years. Because each record carries the country_code, the zone_id, the air_pollutant, and the reporting_year, segmenting by country, zone, pollutant or year is straightforward. Pull one country, one pollutant, or the whole table to seed an air-quality warehouse.

Working with the data

The apportionment is an attribution layer, and the fields make it actionable. Because every record splits the concentration into regional, urban and local components with a sector breakdown, an analyst can compute the traffic share of a city's PM10 exceedance, compare transboundary against domestic contributions, and rank zones by the local-increment they could address with local policy.

Cost guidance

One air_source_apportionment_record per delivered row: cost = rows delivered × your plan's per-record price. Scope with countryCode and year to keep runs bounded. 1,000 rows is $50 (Free) / $33.50 (Gold).

Honest limitations

• As reported. Apportionment components are as filed by member states; this actor reformats, it does not model or recompute.
• Sparse where unreported. Sectors a country did not report are null, carried through as filed.
• Zone/plan grain. Station-level statistics live in the companion air-quality cells.
• Acknowledge the EEA, and note there is no person data of any kind.

Differentiation

It is the SOURCE-ATTRIBUTION layer, distinct from the air-quality statistics, attainment, assessment-regime, measure and scenario cells. Its specific job is the AQD exceedance source apportionment.

The NexGen Signal family

Part of the NexGen Signal family of pay-per-record data products:

• EU Waterbody Quality Records — EEA
• EU Nitrate Monitoring Records — EEA
• EU Bathing Water Quality Records — EEA
• EU Industrial Emissions Records — EEA
• EU Surface Water Priority Substance Records — EEA

Source: European Environment Agency (EEA), Air Quality Directive data flows (discodata.eea.europa.eu). EEA data may be reused, including commercially, provided the source is acknowledged: "Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)"; marked third-party content keeps its own terms. Zone/plan grain; the free-text comment is excluded; no contact or named-individual field is selected or emitted, no natural-person data of any kind. Reported attributions as filed, not a model.