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Standardized Emissions and Waste Inventories (StEWI)
Citation:
Ingwersen, W. AND B. Young. Standardized Emissions and Waste Inventories (StEWI). St EWI, N/A, N/A, November 10, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
To introduce the StEWI tool to the Emissions Inventory Series virtual conference attendees.
Description:
The USEPA provides databases that agglomerate data provided by companies or states reporting emissions, release, wastes generated and other activities to meet statutory requirements. Examples of these databases, often referred to as inventories, include the National Emissions Inventory (NEI), Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR), and Biennial Hazardous Waste Report (RCRAInfo). These inventories can be used for a wide variety of environmental reporting and modeling purposes to characterize conditions in the US. Users of these inventories are often challenged to find, retrieve and interpret these data due to the unique systems/schemes used to describe, format and dispense them that are not consistent across inventories. Combining these data from more than one inventory presents particular challenges, as information to link facilities, chemicals and industries is not inherent in these data sources, and because overlap exists that could result in double-counting or other erroneous estimation if not acknowledged and handled. To address these challenges, a system called Standardized Emission and Waste Inventories (StEWI) has been created. The system consists of four python modules that provide rapid access to EPA inventory data in standard formats and permit filtering and combination of these inventory data. A standardized data quality scoring system is used to associate all emission and waste data with data reliability scores. Currently standardized data are available for NEI, TRI, RCRAInfo, eGRID, and DMR for select years between 2000-2018. StEWI will greatly facilitate the use of USEPA inventory data in applications that may include chemical release and exposure modeling and life cycle assessment tools, among others. StEWI has been used to build the recent USEEIO model and baseline electricity life cycle inventory database for the Federal LCA Commons. This presentation will provide an overview and short demonstration of StEWI, highlight current uses in EPA research, and provoke discussion on potential future enhancements to meet anticipated uses.