The impact of marine shipping and its DECA control on air quality in the Pearl River Delta, China

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2018-06, Vol.625, p.1476-1485
• Main Authors: Liu, Huan, Jin, Xinxin, Wu, Luolin, Wang, Xuemei, Fu, Mingliang, Lv, Zhaofeng, Morawska, Lidia, Huang, Feifan, He, Kebin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution; Control strategy; Cost; DECA; Shipping emissions
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.033

•Ships sailing in PRD sea area would cause significant affect to land air quality.•The ship emission density is higher in the port cluster.•DECA policy would efficiently decrease the ambient SO2 and PM2.5 concentrations.•Expanding the DECA to 200 nautical miles would slightly improve land air quality.•Expanding the DECA along the whole coastline could improve land air quality fairer. [Display omitted] Marine trade has significantly expanded over the past decades aiding to the economic development of the maritime countries, yet, this has been associated with a considerable increase in pollution emission from shipping operation. This study aims at considering both sides of the spectrum at the same time, which is including both public and shipping business. Of the key significance would be to optimize the operation of the shipping industry, such that its impact on air pollution is minimized, without, however, significant escalation of its cost, and therefore to protect the whole seaborne trade. To do this, we considered the impacts of three control strategies, including the current emission control area (ECA) design, as well two additional ones. Thus the first scenario (DECA1) was based on the China's domestic emission control area (DECA), which was set up in 2016. The DECA1 scale was only 12 nautical miles, which was much smaller than the emission control areas in US or Europe. We defined the second scenario (DECA2), by stretching the zone to 200 nautical miles towards the ocean, modeling it on the ECA in North America. The third scenario (DECA3), on the other hand, expanded the 12 nautical miles control zone along the whole coastline. To investigate the impact of shipping emissions on air quality, a shipping emission calculation model and an air quality simulation model were used, and Pearl River Delta (PRD), China was chosen to serve as a case study. The study demonstrated that in 2013 marine shipping emissions contributed on average 0.33 and 0.60μg·m−3, respectively to the land SO2 and PM2.5 concentrations in the PRD, and that the concentrations were high along the coastline. The DECA1 policy could effectively reduce SO2 and PM2.5 concentrations in the port regions, and the average reduction in the land area were 9.54% and 2.7%, respectively. Compared with DECA1, DECA2 would not measurably improve the air quality, while DECA3 would effectively decrease the pollution in the entire coast area. Thus, instead of expanding emission control area far to the ocea