A study of regional characteristic of air pollution problem in Hong Kong using system dynamics

Abstract

Distasteful air quality undermines the quality of life for human-being. Hong Kong is confronted with two major air pollution issues which are street level air pollution and the regional air pollution. The former is mainly due to high population density, over crowded high-rise buildings, and high concentration of diesel vehicles. Concerning the regional air pollution, the pollution sources from Pearl River Delta (PRD) region is another fatal factor to the phenomena such as smog and low visibility. Numerous air pollution related researches have been conducted specifically on health, environmental assessment, individual pollutant interrelationship, and urban planning. Nevertheless, there are limited studies regarding the use of a systematic approach to study the transboundary air pollution problem which interacts with abundant impact factors including meteorology, population density, environmental policy, pollution sources, and economic development. System dynamics (SD) is the concept of a system thinking providing the decision-maker an effective tool to better understand large-scale and complex management problems. The aim of this study is to characterize the behaviors of public health, local weather pattern and major air pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxides, respirable suspended particulates, ozone and sulphur dioxides in a systemic and integrated approach. By using the SD approach, a comprehensive street level air pollution model is proposed to study the interrelationship among the impact factors. The model bridges the gap between air pollution, health impact, meteorological factors, and urban environmental characteristics like population size, traffic pattern, building densities in a logical way. Case studies are used to demonstrate and evaluate the usefulness and applicability of the developed SD system in a number of representative districts in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories in 1997-2004. In the SD simulated environment, the level of local street air pollution (LSP ap) and health effect on air pollution (HE ap) in studied districts are quantified. Two newly indexes are suggested: (1) evaluation index for human health and air pollution called HAPI and (2) overall mortality index named as OMI, the trend and degree of health risk suffering by local population under an populated environment in different district can be studied in both short- and long-term. HAPI indicated that the population in Causeway Bay is under the highest risk in .2001-2004. Besides, sensitivity analyses are done to the study of the impacts of local and PRD region air control policies. A realistic, holistic and optimal picture showing the relationship of a number of air pollution related factors could then be provided to the decision-maker in planning, monitoring and controlling a number of air pollution measures to mitigate the air pollution in the future.

Date of Award	2 Oct 2007
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	W. Z. LU (Supervisor)