PLANNING MALAYSIA: Journal of the Malaysian Institute of Planners SPECIAL ISSUE IV (2016), Page 395 - 410 AN INVESTIGATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND USE COMPOSITION AND PM10 POLLUTION IN ISKANDAR MALAYSIA Muhammad Azahar Zikri Zahari1, M. Rafee Majid2, Ho Chin Siong3, Gakuji Kurata4 & Nadhirah Nordin5 1,2,3,5 UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA 4KYOTO UNIVERSITY, JAPAN Abstract This paper discusses the relationship between land use composition and the degree of air pollution, specifically PM10, in Iskandar Malaysia. Aspiring to be a low carbon region and a smart city, Iskandar Malaysia has to meet the social and economic needs of its growing population while taking care of all the environmental challenges that come with rapid urbanization. The intermittent regional haze episodes in the past years have shrouded this region with particulate matters including PM10, but the major cause of the haze was extensive agricultural open burning rather than land use change. Since there is no doubt land use change itself can be a significant contributor to local PM10 concentration, separating PM10 caused by the local (land use change) source from that of the regional source would enable us to investigate the trend in local PM10 pollution level. Therefore, a study on the Iskandar Malaysia’s PM10 readings for the years 2002, 2006 and 2008 was carried out with the aim to identify the relationship between land use composition and PM10 concentrations. The background concentration of PM10 was extracted by using the base flow separation process commonly used in the hydrograph study. The extracted background concentration was then interpolated with the Terra MODIS level 2 product to identify the PM10 concentration for the whole Iskandar Malaysia region, spatially. Since data for land use changes are compositional data in nature, where the percentages of different land use coverages always add up to unity, the barycentric or ternary plot had been used to investigate the relationship between PM10 concentrations with the land use composition (urban:agriculture:forest) in Iskandar Malaysia. The results show that air quality as represented by PM10 concentrations are inevitably linked to the land use changes at the local level notwithstanding the more noticeable but intermittent influence of the regional haze episodes. The degree of air pollution is noticeably controlled by the percentage of urban land use with PM10 clearly affected by the size of commercial area. Keyword: PM10; land use composition; remote sensing; Iskandar Malaysia 1Masters student AT Faculty of Built Environment, UTM. Email: [email protected] 395 Muhammad Azahar Zikri Zahari, M. Rafee Majid, Ho Chin Siong, Gakuji Kurata & Nadhirah Nordin An Investigation on the Relationship between Land Use Composition and PM10 Pollution in Iskandar Malaysia INTRODUCTION Particulate matter is often condemned as an agent that negatively affects local climate and health. Ramanathan and Carmichael (2008) stated that black carbon warmed the climate in two ways. The particulates warm the air by absorbing sunlight and generate heat in the atmosphere when suspended in the air.This affects regional cloud formation and precipitation patterns. The climate effects of this warming agent were found to be strongly regional because black carbon remained in the atmosphere for only one to four weeks. Iskandar Malaysia had faced air pollution from both regional source and local emissions. Transboundary pollution faced by this region is the haze episodes that intermittently shroud Southeast Asia since 1972. Focusing on local emission, this study considered the regional sources of air pollution as noise. Separating locally emitted PM10 from the transboundary pollution would enable us to clarify the relationship between local particulate matter emission and land use changes. Geo-information is a good platform to study particulate matter through its spatial perspective. The presence of particulate matters best indicated using PM1, PM2.5, PM4 and PM10 concentrations. Since this study focuses on PM10, Aerosol Optical Depth product of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS AOD) were used to verify the local particulate matter pattern, while land use changes were detected using satellite images, Landsat Thematic Mapper (from year 1984 to 2008). Based on the monitoring data and ambient air quality studies, several large cities in Malaysia are facing high level of air pollutants that are not always at acceptable levels (DOE, 2002). Following this, the Department of Environment (DOE) Malaysia adopted the current Air Pollutant Index (API) standards in order to revise their old index system in 1996. The basis for the interpretation of the API had been explained in the Malaysian Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (Table 1: The “safe levels” for the listed concentration pollutant). Highlighted in this study, the average threshold limit for PM10 are 150μg/m3 and 50μg/m3 for 24-hour and 1-year averaging time respectively. Table 1: Malaysian ambient air quality guidelines Malaysia Guideline Pollutant Averaging Time ppm µg/m3 24h - 150 Particulate Matter (PM ) 10 1 year - 50 1h 30 35 Carbon Monoxide (CO) 8h 9 - 1h 0.17 320 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO ) 2 24h 0.04 10 1h 0.13 350 SulphurDioxide (SO ) 2 24h 0.04 105 1h 0.1 200 Ozone (O ) 3 8h 0.06 120 Source: Department of Environment, Malaysia (2002) Transboundary Pollution vs. Local Emissions There have been many discussions among researchers on the sources of air pollution. At this juncture, it is important to differentiate between transboundary pollution and local emissions. According to Nguyen (2010), air pollution sources included both local emissions and long-range transported pollution (or transboundary pollution). © 2016 by MIP 396 Transboundary pollution was defined as atmospheric pollutants transported over huge distances, which caused negative impacts on the environment of receptor sites. Local emission sources can be minimised or controlled, whereas transboundary pollution affected and challenged regional policies and regulations. The possible types and factors of transboundary pollution were listed in Table 2. Transboundary pollution could also be triggered by a dust storm, wildfires, agriculture burning or even anthropogenic emissions. Table 2: Type and events of transboundary pollution. Pollution source Receptor site Source site Reference Dust storm Dust Inner Mongolia in Liu et al., Taiwan storm northern China 2009 Dust Desert regions of Mongolian and Beijing, China Zhang et al., 2009 storm northern China Dust days Beijing - Wang et al., 2006 Dust French Alps Sahara desert Aymoz et al., 2004 storm Anthropogenic pollution Anthropogenic Mainland Junker et Taiwan pollution China al., 2009 Anthropogenic Mainland Lin et al., Taiwan pollution China 2005 Anthropogenic Jeju island, Korea China Nguyen et al., 2009 pollution Biomass burning Wildfire; Helsinki, Eastern Europe Niemi et al., agriculture burning Finland (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine) 2009 Biomass Witham and UK Russia burning Manning, 2007 Biomass Different inland regions of Iberian Aveiro, Portugal burning Peninsula Pio et al., 2008 Missoula, Montana, Forest fire burning Western Montana, USA Ward et al., 2006 USA Jimenez et al., Biomass burning Washington, USA ~200 km on eastern 2006 Washington State Graham et al., Forest fires Rondonia, Brazil Rondinia 2002 Biomass burning Seoul, Korea Korea and China Kang et al., 2004 Kuala Lumpur, Biomass burning Indonesia Fang et al., 1999 Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, Southern Sumatra and Kalimantan, Biomass burning Abas et al., 2004 Malaysia Indonesia Biomass burning Singapore Indonesia See et al., 2006 Radojevic and Biomass burning Brunei Darussalam Indonesia Hassan, 1999 Source: Nguyen (2010) Haze that shrouds Southeast Asian annually is often being condemned as the main factor of degrading air quality in this region. As the criticism continues, we have forgotten that local emission is also one of the contributors on this matter. Particulate matters emitted by urban activities area constant source of pollution, while haze episodes are intermittent. Coal burning was the principal source of particulate matter emissions and air pollution emissions. Haq and Schwela (2008) stated that in most urban areas in Asia, © 2016 by MIP 397 Muhammad Azahar Zikri Zahari, M. Rafee Majid, Ho Chin Siong, Gakuji Kurata & Nadhirah Nordin An Investigation on the Relationship between Land Use Composition and PM10 Pollution in Iskandar Malaysia the most important sources of air pollution were from motor vehicles, particularly those fuelled by diesel fuel and two stroke engines. The largest motorcycle fleet in the world was found in the Asian region since motorcycles were the cheapest mode of individual motorised transportation for the expanding working class in Asia. The backyard burning of refuse (garbage and biomass) still created noticeable and perhaps considerable air pollution. Street cooking was another source of concern, which was important in many urban areas. Therefore, the stated reviews proved that the blame of air pollution and particulate matter emission was not on the intermittent haze episode alone. Local emission from Iskandar Malaysia may be related to its land use composition trend, which indicates heavily industrialised urban area with higher private vehicles dependency. Therefore, this research was formulated to identify the relationship between land use composition and air quality (PM10). This may help Iskandar Malaysia to control local emission through a proper land use management.