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Wang et al. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:14 Carbon Footprints
DOI: 10.20517/cf.2024.19

Original Article Open Access

Open-data-based city-scale gridded carbon dioxide

emission inventory: supporting urban carbon
monitoring in Chengdu, China

1,2
Rui Wang 1,2 , Yuzhong Zhang 1,2 , Shuang Zhao , Xinlu Wang 1,2,3
1
Key Laboratory of Coastal Environment and Resources of Zhejiang Province, School of Engineering, Westlake University,
Hangzhou 310030, Zhejiang, China.
2
Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, Zhejiang, China.
3
College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, Zhejiang, China.
Correspondence to: Prof. Yuzhong Zhang, Key Laboratory of Coastal Environment and Resources of Zhejiang Province, School of
Engineering, Westlake University, No. 600 Dunyu Road, Hangzhou 310030, Zhejiang, China. E-mail:
zhangyuzhong@westlake.edu.cn
How to cite this article: Wang R, Zhang Y, Zhao S, Wang X. Open-data-based city-scale gridded carbon dioxide emission
inventory: supporting urban carbon monitoring in Chengdu, China. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:14. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/cf.
2024.19
Received: 27 Jun 2024 First Decision: 24 Aug 2024 Revised: 5 Sep 2024 Accepted: 10 Sep 2024 Published: 21 Sep 2024

Academic Editors: Hui Wang, Yuli Shan Copy Editor: Fangling Lan Production Editor: Fangling Lan

Abstract
Gridded carbon dioxide (CO ) emission inventories are usually required as prior information for deriving urban-
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scale emissions from atmospheric CO monitoring data. However, existing global or national gridded inventories
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are inadequate for this purpose because of their failure to accurately resolve the spatial distribution of urban
emissions, especially from point sources, at the city scale. To address this challenge, we developed a city-scale
gridded CO emission inventory mode that spatially disaggregated sectorial CO emissions of a city to a high-
2 2
resolution grid. We compiled a series of sector-specific, high-resolution proxies for spatial disaggregation by
integrating multiple open data, including remote sensing imagery and urban big data. As a demonstration, we
applied the methodology to Chengdu, China, for a gridded CO emission inventory at a 1 km resolution for 2020.
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This inventory offered a clear and comprehensive depiction of the spatial distribution of CO emissions at the city
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scale, identified high-emission areas, and delivered essential scientific support and decision-making tools for
effective carbon management. For example, compared to global or national inventories (e.g., EDGAR) that use
population or GDP as proxy data for industrial emissions, this inventory provided more accurate locations of
industrial point source emissions by including information on 50,000 industrial sources collected from open
sources. The improved spatial distribution of the gridded inventory allows for more accurate and reliable flux
inversion, establishing a robust data foundation for the development of CO concentration monitoring networks.
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Keywords: Carbon dioxide, gridded emission inventory, city scale, city big data, carbon monitoring, spatial
allocation

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
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