Background

SHERPA (Screening for High Emission Reduction Potential on Air) is a Python tool, which allows for a rapid exploration of potential air quality improvements resulting from national/regional/local emission reduction measures. The tool has been developed with the aim of supporting national, regional and local authorities in the design and assessment of their air quality plans. The tool is based on the relationships between emissions and concentration levels, and can be used to answer the following type of questions:

• What is the potential for local action in my domain?
• What are the priority activity, sectors and pollutants on which to take action?
• What is the optimal dimension that my policy action domain (city, region…) should have to be efficient?

The SHERPA tool is distributed with EU-wide data on emissions and source-receptor models (spatial resolution of roughly 6x6 km2, reference year for emissions at 2022), so that it is very easy to start working on any region/local domain in Europe.

More specifically, SHERPA logical pathway is implemented through the following steps:

• Source allocation: to understand how the air quality in a given area is influenced by different sectoral or geographical sources;
• Scenario analysis: - Scenario analysis: to simulate the impact on air quality of a specific emission reduction scenario (defined also through the previous two steps)

Links to SHERPA and reports

• SHERPA Dashboard (EU login required)
• Urban PM2.5 Atlas, Air Quality in European Cities, 2025 Report
• Urban PM2.5 Atlas, Air Quality in European Cities, 2025 Report, raw data

Documents

Methodological Papers

• Design and implementation of a new module to evaluate the cost of air pollutant abatement measures (2022) Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 317, 115486 (Bessagnet, B., Pisoni, E., Thunis, P., Mascherpa, A.)
• Application of the SHERPA source-receptor relationships, based on the EMEP MSC-W model, for the assessment of air quality policy scenarios (2019) Atmospheric Environment: X, 4, art. no. 100047 (Pisoni, E., Thunis, P., Clappier, A)
• PM2.5 source allocation in European cities: A SHERPA modelling study (2018) Atmospheric Environment, 187, pp. 93-106 (Thunis, P., Degraeuwe, B., Pisoni, E., Trombetti, M., Peduzzi, E., Belis, C.A., Wilson, J., Clappier, A., Vignati, E)
• Application of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis to the air quality SHERPA modelling tool (2018) Atmospheric Environment, 183, pp. 84-93 (Pisoni, E., Albrecht, D., Mara, T.A., Rosati, R., Tarantola, S., Thunis, P.)
• Adding spatial flexibility to source-receptor relationships for air quality modeling (2017) Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 90, Pages 68-77 (Pisoni, E., Clappier, A., Degraeuwe, B., Thunis, P.)
• On the design and assessment of regional air quality plans: The SHERPA approach (2016) Journal of Environmental Management, 183, pp. 952-958 (Thunis, P., Degraeuwe, B., Pisoni, E., Ferrari, F., Clappier, A.)
• A new approach to design source–receptor relationships for air quality modelling (2015) Environmental Modelling & Software, Volume 74, Pages 66-74 (Clappier, A., Pisoni, E., Thunis, P.)

Application Papers

• Spatial and sector-specific contributions of emissions to ambient air pollution and mortality in European cities: a health impact assessment (S. Khomenko, E. Pisoni, P. Thunis, B. Bessagnet, M. Cirach, T. Iungman et al.)
• Prioritising the sources of pollution in European cities: Do air quality modelling applications provide consistent responses? (2020) Geoscientific Model Development, 13 (11), pp. 5725-5736 (Degraeuwe, B., Pisoni, E., Thunis, P.)
• From emissions to source allocation: Synergies and trade-offs between top-down and bottom-up information (2020) Atmospheric Environment: X, 7, art. no. 100088 (Sartini, L., Antonelli, M., Pisoni, E., Thunis, P.)
• Urban pollution in the Danube and Western Balkans regions: The impact of major PM2.5 sources (2019) Environment International, 133, art. no. 105158 (Belis, C.A., Pisoni, E., Degraeuwe, B., Peduzzi, E., Thunis, P., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Guizzardi, D.)
• Multi-level policies for air quality: implications of national and sub-national emission reductions on population exposure (2018) Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, 11 (9), pp. 1121-1135 (Peduzzi, E., Pisoni, E., Clappier, A., Thunis, P.)
• The impact on air quality of energy saving measures in the major cities signatories of the Covenant of Mayors initiative (2018) Environment International, 118, pp. 222-234

SHERPA training in 2025

In 2025 (the 17th of November 2025) we organized an online SHERPA training.

The agenda of the meeting can be found here.

Recording of the meeting can be found here (password: LXfi3572slRT).

The presentations can be found below: