PM2.5 Pollution Along the Tramway
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PM2.5 Pollution along the Tramway 30 April 2015 Civic Exchange Simon K.W. Ng Institute for the Environment, HKUST Jimmy C.H. Fung, N.T. Lau, Alexis K.H. Lau 32 32 32 About Civic Exchange Civic Exchange is a Hong Kong-based non-profit public policy think tank that was established in September 2000. It is an independent organisation that has access to policymakers, officials, businesses, media and NGOs reaching across sectors and borders. Civic Exchange has solid research experience in areas such as air quality, energy, urban planning, climate change, conservation, water, governance, political development, equal opportunities, poverty and gender. For more information about Civic Exchange, visit http://www.civic- exchange.org. About Institute for the Environment, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) HKUST’s Institute for the Environment (IENV) is a multidisciplinary research organisation that focuses on a number of key environmental areas—air, water, solids/land, marine, and economy and society—to boost sustainable development and improve people’s lives. They focus on local and regional high impact studies, but also strive to advance worldwide understanding of the way the environment works and draw attention to Hong Kong as a centre for pioneering research in this field. IENV also seeks strong partnerships with government and academic institutions in the mainland, and engages in a variety of education and outreach activities. 2 About the authors Simon KW Ng is Chief Research Officer of Civic Exchange. He has collaborated with Civic Exchange since 2001, and worked full-time as a Project Manager between 2003 and 2005. After a six-year stint at the Institute for the Environment of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Simon rejoined Civic Exchange in 2012 as Head of Transport and Sustainability Research. Simon’s major research areas include sustainable transportation, liveable cities, air quality management, energy issues, and local community planning. He is known for his work on ship emissions inventory and control policy in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta. Jimmy Fung is Head and Professor in Division of Environment and Department of Mathematics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He specializes in air quality modeling. The current major focus of his research is in the understanding of the meteorology and air pollution problems in urban and coastal areas like Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta. More recently, his research group has studied the impact of urbanization on air pollution in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. The evolution of local and regional sea-breeze circulation is believed to be responsible to form the necessary meteorological conditions for high air-pollution episodes in the PRD. NT Lau, PhD in Chemical Engineering, now with the Division of Environment, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Lau has been working on air quality monitoring and instrumentation for over 20 years. He has participated in the development and operation of a number of mobile technology and stationary facilities for air quality studies. Alexis Lau (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1991) is currently Professor of the Division of Environment and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Director of the Atmospheric Research Center, and Director of the Environmental Central Facility. His research specializes in Air Quality (AQ), Weather and Climate, and his techniques include analysis of large-scale geophysical datasets, numerical models, and in-situ and satellite remote sensing. His is very active in research. Since 2000, he has been PI/PM for over 48 research project / grants totaling more than 80 million Hong Kong dollars. His research has been regularly used by local and regional governments. 3 Preface & acknowledgements The HKSAR Government has shown its commitment in its Clean Air Plan published in 2013 to improve Hong Kong’s air quality in order to better protect public health. While it is encouraging to see the Government’s measures being implemented and the amount of money being put to retire polluting vehicles that are posing a huge public health risk, it will take some time to see the impacts of these measures. It is therefore of crucial importance to reduce people’s exposure to air pollutants (especially roadside air pollutants) in the meantime. With Hong Kong’s unique city landscape (many skyscrapers and narrow streets and alleys), reducing people’s exposure to air pollutants may be a challenging task. It will first require a good understanding of the current picture of roadside air quality, and the relationship between street-level air quality and urban landscape. With this in mind, the Institute for the Environment, HKUST and Hong Kong Tramways Limited have worked together since March 2013 to collect air samples through a mobile air monitoring platform (ie. a tramcar) along the Northern part of Hong Kong Island, where the tram ran. With Civic Exchange’s longstanding interest in air quality and public health issues, our colleagues also joined the team in identifying policy options to address the challenging issue. This paper represents our efforts in this regard. We thank the project collaborators, including the Institute for the Environment, HKUST and Hong Kong Tramways, Limited. We would also like to thank Prof. Chak Chan and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering on their assistance in the development of PM2.5 measurement system. We thank Simon Ng for completing this paper, Stephen Tong, Michelle Wong, Keith Wu and Carine Lai for their contribution. We are grateful to ADM Capital Foundation for providing financial support to the publication of this paper. Yan-yan Yip Chief Executive Officer 29 April 2015 4 Table of contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 6 2. The HKUST PM2.5 Measurement Project .................................................... 8 2.1 PM2.5 measurement .................................................................................. 8 2.2 Urban and building morphology .............................................................. 9 3. Key Findings ........................................................................................... 10 3.1 PM2.5 concentrations hotspots ............................................................... 10 3.2 PM2.5 concentrations and air quality standards ...................................... 10 3.3 PM2.5 concentrations and urban morphology ........................................ 13 4. Discussions and Policy Recommendations .............................................. 15 4.1 Discussions ............................................................................................. 15 4.2 Policy recommendations ........................................................................ 16 Endnotes ........................................................................................................ 17 5 1 Introduction Road transport is a key According to the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of local air pollution source. the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government, According to WHO, road transport is one of the key local air pollution sources in the city, motor vehicle exhausts contributing 27 per cent of nitrogen oxides, 20 per cent of particulate 1 and particulate matter matter, and 23 per cent of fine particulate matter2.5 (PM ) in 2012. are carcinogenic to humans From the health perspective, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2012 classified diesel engine exhausts (such as motor vehicle and ship exhausts) as carcinogenic to humans,2 and in 2013 classified particulate matter, which is a major outdoor air pollutant, also as carcinogenic to humans.3 It means there is sufficient scientific evidence that exposure to diesel engine exhausts and particulate matter will lead to an increased risk of lung cancer. Roadside air pollution is Given Hong Kong’s high-density, compact urban development, a compounded by compact large proportion of the population are living and/or working close urban development and to the main roads with heavy traffic and toxic vehicle exhausts. the street canyon effect Street-level air pollution is further exacerbated by the ‘street canyon’ effect, where urban roads are lined with tall buildings on both sides, making the dispersion of vehicle exhausts extremely difficult. As such, roadside air pollution poses a serious daily health risk to the people in Hong Kong. It is essential to monitor Before the Government can effectively reduce people’s exposure to roadside air pollution in roadside air pollution, one of the first things to do is to get a better different major locations, understanding about the level of roadside air quality along major but the coverage of EPD’s traffic corridors where human activity level and pedestrian flow are monitoring network is also high. At the moment, roadside air quality information such as limited air pollutant concentrations is only collected at the roadside stations in Central, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok under EPD’s air quality monitoring network. Right now, there is no roadside air quality data in heavily trafficked areas such as Wan Chai or Admiralty, where local condition can be quite different from Central or Causeway Bay. In other words, readings from Central and Causeway Bay roadside stations may not be a good reference for Wan Chai and Admiralty. In this