So long and thanks for all the fish!

Well, thats it! This marks the end of my assessed blogging endeavours. Over the last few months we have investigated a range of topics relating to the environmental impacts of an increasing population with a particular focus on Hong Kong. The topics covered include the following:

Impacts of agriculture on the environment including algal blooms;
Environmental impacts on marine ecology;
Land reclamation;
Overfishing;
Air Pollution.

I have also touched upon possible solutions for some of these environmental issues.

From all the research I have undertaken, I think its clear for all to see that pollution is a really serious issue in Hong Kong and that whilst efforts are being made by the Hong Kong Government to improve the situation, it will be an uphill struggle as demands become greater from an increasing population.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my posts over the last few months and have learnt a lot. I know I have and it has certainly made me more aware of how fragile our planet is.

Thanks again for tuning in, and because you know you want it here’s another porpoise:

Courtesy of cnn.com

Who impacts the impactors??

Hi, welcome back to Standing Room only.

Ok, so I realise that this blog is geared towards human impacts upon the environment but I thought it was about time that we had a little segway into how we are impacting ourselves. With that today’s blog post is going to be on a major problem that Hong Kong and in fact Asia in general are facing -  Air Pollution!

Having visited Hong Kong myself I can attest that there is definite evidence of air pollution which can display itself as a haze that appears across the harbour, making visibility very poor on some days.

This blog post is going to primarily focus on the causes and effects of air pollution with a strong focus on Hong Kong.

So, what causes air pollution?

There are a number of contributing factors to air pollution but generally we can lump them into three catagories:

• Agriculture
• Burning of fossil fuels (e.g. transportation)
• Emissions from factories and other industrial activities

These factors are clearly anthropogenic in origin and increase proportionally. An increased population on the scale and density of HK magnifies the effects of air pollution to the extent that it has become a serious environmental issue. Levels of air pollution are demonstrated by an Air Quality Index (AQI) (formerly the Air Pollution Index).

Visibility in Hong Kong on a bad (left) and good (right) day. Image courtesy of blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime

There has been a lot of research undertaken on air pollution that, unsurprisingly, predominantly focuses on the impact of air pollution on human health. Meteorological influences over air pollution levels are also well studies.

Tai et al (2010) look into how meteorological conditions have an effect on air pollution (Particulate Matter PM2.5). They conclude that there is a link between meteorological conditions and air pollution and suggest that the findings point to the possibility of climate change affecting future air pollution. Although this study focuses on the air pollution in the United States, the indications are clearly applicable to Hong Kong.

A more recent study undertaken by Fung and Wu (2014) looks into the relationship between intraseasonal variations of air pollution and meteorological variables in Hong Kong as this is important in regions that experience monsoon like conditions, which includes Hong Kong.  The meteorological conditions that the study predominantly focuses on are precipitation, wind direction and wind speed. Fung and Wu conclude that the intraseasonal relationship is complex and that whilst precipitation generally favours improved air quality, more robust data is required. They also conclude that the impact of wind speed on the API  intraseasonal variations is dependent on the season and differs year to year. Finally the study has found high API values are usually encountered under northerly winds in Hong Kong, however, there are cases when winds from other directions may lead to air quality problems.

Every year an estimated half million urban deaths in Asia are thought to be caused by air pollution (Brajer et al, 2005), however, compared to other cities in Asia, Hong Kong actually has relatively clean air due to pollution control measures put in place over the last two decades . They discuss how high levels of particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have been linked to several health problems. These include:

• Decreased lung function;
• Bronchitis;
• Emphysema; and
• Heart disease;

Some of these health issues can even lead to premature death. Brajer et al (2005) assess the health benefits of reducing air pollution in Hong Kong by estimating the resulting health improvements from additional cleanup of the air pollution using data provided by several sources including Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department and the Department of Health . The study concludes that whilst there has been some success when it comes to the mitigation efforts that has been put in for air pollution, there is still a long-term air pollution problem in Hong Kong. It estimates a projected gain of several billion dollars (U.S dollar) should Hong Kong achieve further reduction in air pollution levels which is a significant amount. So the benefits of cleaning up air pollution will not only improve human health, it will also save a substantial amount of money.

So, what can be done to help clean up the air pollution? In March 2013, the Hong Kong Government issued a document called 'A Clean Air Plan for hong Kong' the main driving force for this plan was to improve the health of the public. The plan focuses on ways to reduce roadside air pollution which includes changing vehicular technology. Examples of this is changing the fleet of taxis and Public Light Buses (PLB) from diesel to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and increasing the use of hybrid or Electric Vehicles (EV). The plan also identifies the need for reducing marine emissions by changing the fuel used for operating vessels and also reducing power plant emissions (although this has been greatly reduced already) by changing the fuel mix used and improving energy efficiency in buildings across Hong Kong.

It’s a long road to improving air quality in Hong Kong, however it is clearly being recognised as a necessity and by undertaking the few changes mentioned above, there will hopefully be significant improvements to come!

If you’re curious you can visit the website http://aqicn.org/city/hongkong/, to see the real time AQI for Hong Kong, at the time of writing this blog (HK time monday 5am) Hong Kong had an AQI of 162 which is classed as being unhealthy!

Courtesy of http://aqicn.org/city/hongkong

Here's PREDICTS-ing you have a happy new year!

Greetings,

With new years hangovers out of the way and the left over mince pies well and truly gone I welcome you back to Standing Room Only.  I thought that I'd I write a post, belatedly inspired by a tweet about the PREDICTS database from UCL's very own Prof. Anson Mackay, regarding bio-diversity.

The global eco-system is suffering from a declining trend in biodiversity. Furthermore this trend is potentially accelerating. Butchart et al (2010) compile a summary of 5 biodiversity pressures and demonstrate that all possess increasing trends:

• Anthropogenic consumption of ecological resources
• Introduction of Alien species in ecologies
• Nitrogen Pollution (predominantly agricultural)
• Fisheries exploitation
• Climate change impacts

Unsurprisingly, these pressures are directly derived from Anthropogenic impacts (BTW: if you're a climate change denier then check out a fellow UCL Masters students blog that has all the facts:  Fighting-climate-change blog. C. Ferrere, 2014).

One of the biggest obstacles in evaluating species loss and biodiversity trends is the lack of empirical evidence. Numerous biodiversity projects are underway (Hong Kong's AFCD has implemented its own bio-diversity database) but many exist as separate entities that collect their own data solely for their own research. Huamán et al's (2000) seminal Inter-genebank Potato Database (complete with a summary of dimensions of wild potato germplasm) remains, unfortunately, in the realm of the Solarnum advocates. But I digress...

The PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) database represents an effort to form a global community of  contributors of terrestrial biodiversity data. To date the effort has data for more than 38,000 species across the world.

Representation of PREDICTS current geographical range of data, courtesy of www.predicts.org.uk.

The database is the result of combining numerous small scale biodiversity studies (no potatoes yet) that cover the majority of biomes (portions of the earth that demonstrate similar, if not the same, climatic and environmental conditions, typically reflecting a latitudinal relationship).

Biome classification parameters, courtesy of Marietta College.

It is estimated that up to 50% of 9 out of 14 biomes have been impacted by agricultural activity alone. This pressure is resulting in extensive damage to biodiversity in those regions (Hassan et al, 2005).

The homogenisation of biodiversity is a real problem, its potential severity reflected by its inclusion at number 7 in the United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDG) (2008). Butchart et al's (2010)  biodiversity pressures represent activity that we have, in the course of this blog, identified as extensive in Hong Kong:

The immutable Morton (1995) points out that the boom in population and industry after the Second World War sparked an increase in the consumption of resources (both terrestrial and aquatic).

Whilst his editorial (2005) indicates that the exploitation of fishery resources over the same period has resulted in the loss of higher trophic level species.

Nitrogen pollution both from Hong Kong itself and flowing from the Pearl River Delta wreaks havoc with marine diversity causing HAB events which create toxic marine conditions and potential deplete oxygen levels, suffocating the aquaculture (Anderson et al, 2002).

Thanks for joining me again, I'll leave you with some Solarnum biodiversity that didn't make it into Huamán et al's (2000) database, more's the pity.

Courtesy of it.wikipedia.org