The contribution of traffic and solvent use to the total NMVOC emission in a German city derived from measurements and CMB modelling

The results of the present work show that traffic emission rather than solvent use determines the ambient NMVOC composition. The maximum contribution of solvent use to the NMVOC emission estimated on the basis of experimentally obtained results amounts to about 23% in the whole area of Wuppertal. It can be concluded that the contribution of solvent use to the NMVOC concentrations also in other German cities falls in the range of few to about 20%, assuming that Wuppertal can be considered as a typical German urban area with certain proportions of domestic, traffic and various industrial activities. These results are in strong disagreement with the German Emission Inventory, which states, that in the reference year 2003 about 51% of the total NMVOC emissions originate from solvent use and only 14% from traffic.