The aim of the EEMA study was to further develop European economic and environmental modelling capabilities in aviation environmental policy and rulemaking. Modelling in this context meant the assessment of aviation's environmental impact and the associated costs. There is significant existing modelling capability in Europe in the form of individual models, addressing individual aspects of noise, emissions, impacts and economics. These models have evolved in relative isolation, and as such, there was a need to develop common interfaces such that the models could work together and perform comparable assessments which are able to identify environmental trade-offs from proposed policy options.
The EEMA project developed a prototype basic modelling system, based on an analysis of potential European policy options. This included a data warehouse concept to link modelling capability such that common data could be shared by otherwise incompatible models. This prototype system was successfully subjected to a practical demonstration, in which modelling a change in an aircraft engine NOx emission regulation was simulated using the data warehouse and a set of of European models.
