The impact of ship emissions on air quality and human health in the Gothenburg area – Part II: Scenarios for 2040
<p>Shipping is an important source of air pollutants, from the global to the local scale. Ships emit substantial amounts of sulfur dioxides, nitrogen dioxides, and particulate matter in the vicinity of coasts, threatening the health of the coastal population, especially in harbour cities. Redu...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2020-09-01
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| Series: | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
| Online Access: | https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/20/10667/2020/acp-20-10667-2020.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Shipping is an important source of air pollutants, from
the global to the local scale. Ships emit substantial amounts of
sulfur dioxides, nitrogen dioxides, and particulate matter in the vicinity
of coasts, threatening the health of the coastal population, especially in
harbour cities. Reductions in emissions due to shipping have been targeted
by several regulations. Nevertheless, effects of these regulations come into
force with temporal delays, global ship traffic is expected to grow in the
future, and other land-based anthropogenic emissions might decrease. Thus,
it is necessary to investigate combined impacts to identify the impact of
shipping activities on air quality, population exposure, and health effects
in the future.</p>
<p>We investigated the future effect of shipping emissions on air quality and
related health effects considering different scenarios of the development of
shipping under current regional trends of economic growth and already
decided regulations in the Gothenburg urban area in 2040. Additionally, we
investigated the impact of a large-scale implementation of shore electricity
in the Port of Gothenburg. For this purpose, we established a one-way nested
chemistry transport modelling (CTM) system from the global to the urban
scale, to calculate pollutant concentrations, population-weighted
concentrations, and health effects related to <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>2</sub></span>, PM<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2.5</sub></span>, and <span class="inline-formula">O<sub>3</sub></span>.</p>
<p>The simulated concentrations of <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>2</sub></span> and PM<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2.5</sub></span> in future scenarios
for the year 2040 are in general very low with up to 4 ppb for <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>2</sub></span> and
up to 3.5 <span class="inline-formula">µ</span>g m<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−3</sup></span> PM<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2.5</sub></span> in the urban areas which
are not close to the port area. From 2012 the simulated overall exposure to
PM<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2.5</sub></span> decreased by approximately 30 % in simulated future scenarios;
for <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>2</sub></span> the decrease was over 60 %. The simulated concentrations of
<span class="inline-formula">O<sub>3</sub></span> increased from the year 2012 to 2040 by about 20 %. In general, the
contributions of local shipping emissions in 2040 focus on the harbour area
but to some extent also influence the rest of the city domain. The simulated
impact of onshore electricity implementation for shipping in 2040 shows
reductions for <span class="inline-formula">NO<sub>2</sub></span> in the port of up to 30 %, while increasing
<span class="inline-formula">O<sub>3</sub></span> of up to 3 %. Implementation of onshore electricity for ships at
berth leads to additional local reduction potentials of up to 3 % for
PM<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2.5</sub></span> and 12 % for <span class="inline-formula">SO<sub>2</sub></span> in the port area. All future scenarios
show substantial decreases in population-weighted exposure and health-effect
impacts.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1680-7316 1680-7324 |