Developing a high-resolution emission inventory tool for low-carbon city management using hybrid method - A pilot test in high-density Hong Kong

Abstract

Energy is one of the crucial elements in creating resilience in cities. Global cities produce more than 70% of the world's carbon emissions from energy activities and thus play an important role in changing climate and causing environmental problems. The spatial modelling of urban carbon emissions can serve as the basis for carbon emissions mitigation. Building attributes are the key energy demand indicators and significant in constructing the emission inventory, but they are often not accounted for in the modelling process due to data availability. Therefore, this study aims to develop a tool for modelling a high-resolution emission inventory using open urban form data and demonstrate it for Hong Kong. This tool modelled the urban carbon emissions for building and transport sectors using a hybrid method involving both bottom-up and top-down approach. Open urban data including building attributes and traffic flow were extracted as model input data. The urban carbon emissions were modelled for Hong Kong at 100 m spatial resolution for different sectors and integrated in Tertiary Planning Unit. Validation results show that the method has reasonably represented both the total emissions and the spatial pattern of urban carbon emissions of Hong Kong. The spatial distribution of carbon emissions of Hong Kong can provide reference information for low-carbon city management for other high-density cities. The method shows the potentially broad applicability, therefore contributing to the global collaborative effort in the mitigation of carbon emissions. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.