The influence of spatiality on shipping emissions, air quality and potential human exposure in the Yangtze River Delta/Shanghai, China

Abstract

Abstract. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and the megacity of Shanghai are host to one of the busiest port clusters in the world; the region also suffers from high levels of air pollution. The goal of this study was to estimate the contributions of shipping to regional emissions, air quality, and population exposure and to characterize the importance of the geographic spatiality of shipping lanes and different types of ship-related sources for the baseline year of 2015, which was prior to the implementation of China's Domestic Emission Control Areas (DECAs) in 2016. The WRF-CMAQ model, which combines the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) and the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, was used to simulate the influence of coastal and inland-water shipping, port emissions and ship-related cargo transport on air quality and on the population-weighted concentrations (which is a measure of human exposure). Our results showed that the impact of shipping on air quality in the YRD was primarily attributable to shipping emissions within 12 NM (nautical miles) of shore, but emissions coming from the coastal area between 24 and 96 NM still contributed substantially to ship-related PM2.5 concentrations in the YRD. The overall contribution of ships to the PM2.5 concentration in the YRD could reach 4.62 µg m−3 in summer when monsoon winds transport shipping emissions onshore. In Shanghai city, inland-water going ships were major contributors (40 %–80 %) to the shipping impact on urban air quality. Given the proximity of inland-water ships to the urban populations of Shanghai, the emissions of inland-water ships contributed more to population-weighted concentrations. These research results provide scientific evidence to inform policies for controlling future shipping emissions; in particular, in the YRD region, expanding the boundary of 12 NM from shore in China's current DECA policy to around 100 NM from shore would include most of shipping emissions affecting air pollutant exposure, and stricter fuel standards could be considered for the ships on inland rivers and other waterways close to residential regions.

Monitoring compliance with fuel sulfur content regulations of sailing ships by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) measurements of ship emissions in open water

“…In this project, an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) was designed and developed, and mainly included a pod for measuring the exhaust gas from ships and a UAV to carry the pod. In previous research (Zhou et al, 2019), the plumes of 23 berthing ships were measured using the first-generation pod. The deviation of the estimated FSC 75 obtained by the UAS was < 0.03% (m/m) for an FSC of between 0.035% (m/m) and 0.24% (m/m).…”

“…Shanghai is one of the most prosperous cities in the world, and at the end of 2017 that city had a permanent resident population of approximately 24 million people (Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics, 2017). The Waigaoqiao port area is only 20 km away from the city center, and the air pollution caused by ship emissions directly affects the urban air environment and the health of residents (Wang et 100 al., 2019;Feng et al, 2019). The experimental area of the MISEE project is mainly within the Waigaoqiao port and the Yangtze River estuary.…”

“…1 and 2). This method has been widely used to calculate the FSC in related studies (Alföldy et al, 2013;Pirjola et al, 2014;Balzani Lööv et al, 2014;Beecken et al, 2014;Beecken et al, 2015;Kattner et al, 2015;Zhou et al, 2019). In the calculation, the molecular weights of carbon and sulfur are 12 g mol -1 and 32 g 120 mol -1 , respectively, and the carbon mass percent in the fuel is 87 ± 1.5% (Cooper et al, 2003).…”

“…In previous research, the main uncertainties of UAV measurements were summarized as sensor uncertainty, measurement uncertainty, calculation uncertainty, and exhaust uncertainty. The instrument calibration method, UAV flight procedures, and data treatment methods reported by Zhou et al (2019) were incorporated in this study to reduce these uncertainties. In addition, a distinction between good-and poor-quality data was made and some plume data were rejected.…”

“…The pollutant gases emitted 25 by ships not only affect the global climate (Huebert, 1999;Corbet, 2016), but also local air quality and can harm people's health. (Yang et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2019). Shipping accounted for 15%, 13%, and 3% of the annual global anthropogenic emissions of NOx, SOx, and CO2 from 2007to 2012, respectively (Smith et al, 2014.…”