The Spanish Register of Emissions and Pollutant Sources came into force in 2001, being the former EPER-España. Since 2007 it is called PRTR-España and the scope increased, especially due to the adoption of new international legal instruments. Spain is Part of the Kiev Protocol (2003) related to the pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTR). Spain also must meet the requirements of the Regulation (EC) 166/2006 on the provision of information to the E-PRTR register. Moreover, national legislation was adopted to clearly define the information requirements for the owners/operators and the authorities (Real Decreto 508/2007 and its amendments). According to this regulation, the owners/operators of the facilities must report annually the following information to their respective competent authorities (Regional Goverments):
- releases of relevant pollutants to the air, water or land,
- accidental emissions,
- releases from diffuse sources,
- off-site transfers of wastes from the facility, and
all the additional information established in the Annexes of the
Real Decreto 508/2007 por el que se regula el suministro de información sobre emisiones del Reglamento E-PRTR y de autorizaciones ambientales integradas.
The public information is available both at facility level and as aggregated by pollutant, wastes, geographical, economic categories and industrial sectors.
Furthermore, PRTR-España offers information on releases from other point and diffuse sources, as well as the available information related to other National Inventories and International information requirements (National Emission Inventory, greenhouse emissions reports, air quality, water quality, national emission ceilings, etc.).