A Relationship Between Economic Performance and Air Pollution of a Science Park: A Case Study of Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan

Abstract

Rapid economic development has caused serious air pollution which threatens human health. Science parks play an important role in economic development, however their air pollutants deteriorate the ambient air quality. This study investigates the relationship between the economic performance and air pollution of Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, which is the biggest production base of semi-conductors and other relevant high-tech industries. The total business turnover and annual average concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), nitrogen oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and particle matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) of Hsinchu Science Park from 1993 to 2012 were employed for the analysis. Vector Auto Regression (VAR) model was used to analyze the relationship between economic performance and air pollution for Hsinchu Science Park. The results indicated that there was a close, long-term and stable relationship between economic performance and air pollution concentrations in Hsinchu Science Park. A significant hysteresis effect of the economic performance was observed on the O3 and CO concentrations, while a weak hysteresis effect of that was revealed on the SO2, NOx and PM10 concentrations. The increasing emissions of O3 and CO resulted from the production expansion. By contrast, SO2, NOx, PM10 were not affected by the growth of economic performance of Hsinchu Science Park.