PINETI


Project Overview

The PINETI project series—which stands for Pollutant INput and EcosysTem Impact—is a long-term research initiative commissioned by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The core mission of the PINETI series is to model, map, and evaluate the nationwide deposition of atmospheric air pollutants across German ecosystems, with a specific focus on acidifying and eutrophying compounds such as reactive nitrogen and sulfur. Because excess nitrogen deposition heavily alters soil chemistry and poses a threat to national biodiversity, PINETI's high-resolution datasets serve as a foundation for tracking environmental trends and advising federal conservation policies.

Projects

  • PINETI I (2014):This project calculated the total atmospheric deposition (including dry, wet, and occult inputs) of nitrogen, sulfur, and base cations across Germany for the years 2008 and 2009. By contrasting these inputs against environmental safety thresholds, it evaluated where over-pollution threatened Germany’s sensitive ecosystems and biodiversity.
  • PINETI II (2017): This project established new quantitative deposition estimates for 2009, 2010, and 2011, mapping variations across Germany and identifying the highest pollution risks. By integrating advanced wet deposition estimations into the LOTOS-EUROS model, this study aligned much closer with international tracking networks (EMEP) and revealed that actual deposition levels were 27% lower than previously estimated.
  • PINETI III (2018):This installment constructed a continuous dataset mapping atmospheric inputs from 2000 to 2015. It introduced three-year rolling averages to prevent weather anomalies from distorting the data used for political decisions. While air pollution controls successfully cut ecosystems affected by acidification from nearly 60% down to 30%, the study revealed that significantly less progress was made against eutrophication, with the highest risk localized in forest ecosystems near industrial and farming hubs.
  • PINETI IV (2020–Recent):This phase quantified the deposition of nitrogen and sulfur compounds across Germany for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 to 2019 using the LOTOS-EUROS chemical transport model paired with actual precipitation measurements. Thanks to architectural model improvements, it achieved significantly better evaluation scores against real-world observations than PINETI-3. Ultimately, it revealed that while nitrogen deposition has steadily decreased over recent decades, critical thresholds for eutrophication were still exceeded in nearly 70% of ecosystems in 2019.