Shipping emissions in a Nordic port: Assessment of mitigation strategies
Introduction
Throughout the European Economic Area, monitoring of air pollution is a key societal concern owing to persistent exceedance of pollution levels established by European Commission air quality directives. The main sources of air pollution in the urban environment are industry, agriculture, on-road traffic and heating. On-road traffic is one of the main contributors to urban air pollution, emitting compounds (e.g. NOx, particulate matter, Volatile Organic Compounds) that have negative effects on human health, causing incidences of cancer and respiratory ailments (Raaschou-Nielsen et al., 2010). Over the last few decades, policy makers have made large efforts to reduce emissions from industrial sources; nowadays, these efforts concern reduction of emissions from on-road traffic. These emission reductions may involve an increase in the relative contribution of other pollution sources such as shipping, exacerbated by the expected increase in maritime traffic (e.g., Dalsøren et al., 2010). Dybedal et al. (2015) established that the number of cruise visitors to Norway has increased from about 200 000 to almost 700 000 over the last 15 years, and further increases are expected. Consequently, there is a need for the design of feasible mitigation measures to reduce emissions from the shipping sector. Such a reduction of emissions will help protect the quality of the urban environment, as well as help mitigate climate change.
Owing to the geographical and meteorological characteristics of Norway, its population, including urban areas, mainly resides along the coast. This geographical distribution, together with a long maritime tradition, makes harbour activities significant areas of economic growth in Norway, as well as sources of development and innovation in urban areas. However, emissions from shipping and its associated activities, contribute to air pollution and climate change. We understand relatively well the global contribution to emissions from shipping, as several studies address their emissions and potential impact at global and regional scales (De Meyer et al., 2008, Volker et al., 2010, Corbett et al., 2010). However, the impact of shipping emissions in the urban environment has received less attention, even though 70% of shipping emissions occur within 400 km of land and, especially, at berth. Viana et al. (2014) reviewed the impact of shipping emissions on urban air quality in coastal areas in Europe, and concluded that the largest impact came from shipping in the Mediterranean basin and the North Sea.
Currently there are strict regulations on sulphur and nitrogen dioxide emissions by the maritime sector (IMO, 2013) and, in particular, in the emission control areas (ECA). Annex VI “Regulations for the prevention of Air Pollution from ships” of the International Maritime Organization (IMO, 2013) came into force in May 2005. This limits the sulphur content of marine fuels on a global basis to (i) 4.5% m/m prior to 1st January 2012; (ii) 3.5% m/m on and after 1st January 2012; and (iii) 0.50% m/m on and after 1st January 2020. The Annex VI imposes stricter regulations in the ECA, where the sulphur content of maritime fuel oil is not to exceed: (i) 1.5% m/m prior to 1st July 2010; (ii) 1.0% m/m on and after 1st July 2010; and (iii) 0.1% m/m on and after 1st January 2015. Regarding NOx emissions, Annex VI contains a 3-tier approach that identifies the allowable emissions of total NOx depending on the engine speed. These regulations are a significant step forward; however, there remains a need for further measures targeting specific subsectors (e.g., type of vessels), climate change drivers (e.g., CO2, black carbon) and the impact from harbour activities near urban centres (Viana et al., 2014).
Development of detailed emission inventories is essential for the design of effective measures to reduce emissions, and for providing boundary conditions for air dispersion models. Several methods exist for developing shipping emission inventories, e.g., methods based on reported fuel consumption, fuel sales, flag of the vessels, automatic identification system (AIS), and ship call activity data, which is based on the registration of vessels when they visit ports. In this study, we use ship call activity data to develop a comprehensive emission inventory that aims to identify the main contributing subsectors from harbour activities. These activities include shipping at different operational modes, land traffic and cargo handling equipment (CHE). One of the novelties of our study is that it takes into account emissions from harbour vessels (e.g., domestic ferries, tugboats); hitherto, most studies only consider emissions from oceangoing vessels (OGV). Our study evaluates the implementation of onshore power, its combination with speed reduction zone (SRZ) and the increased use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as measures to reduce emissions. To our knowledge, this study is one of the few that considers emissions of air pollutant and greenhouse gases (GHGs) at the scale of the harbour area, includes harbour activities and accounts for different mitigation measures. Our study is complemented with the analysis of SO2 measurement data from Oslo city in combination with meteorological conditions to assess the current potential impact of shipping emissions on urban air quality.
Section snippets
Methodology
In this section, we will describe the area of interest, methods to estimate emissions, the collection of input data and the selection of scenarios.
Current emission scenario (2013)
Table 5 and Fig. 3 show emissions estimated for 2013 and distributed per sectors (i.e. shipping, land activities). Total emissions are comparable with those reported for other ports, such as Bergen (Norway) where NOx emissions are reported to be of about 663 tonnes in 2010 (McArthur and Osland, 2013). Other studies report slightly lower values, considering that they are bigger ports. For instance, estimates of NOx and SO2 emissions from the Port of Copenhagen are, respectively, around 555 and
Conclusions
Our study shows the importance of a detailed emission inventory as a basis for designing effective measures to reduce emissions from shipping in harbour areas. Differences in emissions and in the contribution from different sectors exist between ports, which can be explained by differences in the type of operation both at sea (OGV and HV) and on land (Traffic and CHE). We therefore need comprehensive knowledge of emissions from ports, as they contribute and influence the air quality of the
Acknowledgement
This study was possible thanks to the support and cooperation with the Port of Oslo and operators. Special thanks to Terje O. Sørensen, Tommy Svendsen and Carl Johan Hatteland for their help collecting the input data, and to Matthias Vogt for his comments to the early version of the manuscript. The authors are very thankful to William Lahoz for his valuable critical comments and proofreading.
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