Estimate of the total amount of pollutants in Incheon and their impacts on citizens.

Ahreum, Camila, Jungwan, Hyun, Seungjin Department of Logisticts, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea

Introduction
Economic activities in urban area all over the world emit pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM), ammonia (NH3), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and dioxide of carbon (CO2) into the air. Among these activities, the transportation sector may be considered a major source of global pollutants that contribute significantly for the greenhouse effects. Transport sector is an important competitive advantage in modern societies as far as allowing exchanging good and services. This sector account for about 25 per cent of total commercial energy consumed worldwide, and consumes approximately one-half of total oil produced. When the incomplete combustion of fossil fuel occurs, unburned hydrocarbons and others elements are created, those are responsible for environmental degradation, especially with regard to atmospheric pollution. Thus, the development of strategy to improve the performance of transport system as well as to reduce the emissions of transport pollutants is necessary to upgrade air quality in an urban region. The propose of this study is to estimate the amount of pollutants emitted from transport activity in logistic, considering each vehicle modes (truck, ship, airplane and railway) to move products in and to Incheon and to provide an insight view about contribution of these pollutants to local air pollution as well as the their adverse effects on environment and individuals.

Material and Method

Measuring the total amount of pollutants is not an easy task, as there are parameters to be specifies and values to be determined. The method used in progress of this work in the estimation of pollutants in Incheon consists of three

stages: the first step aims to determinate what are the main parameters, the second step purposes to collect data that best represents these parameters, and the last step consists relating all parameters to encounter the total amount of pollutants. Three parameters were chosen to estimate the amount of pollutants. These

include the distance covered by a distribution mode, the quantity of cargo transported within Incheon`s bounders and the amount of each greenhouse gases emitted per transportation mode. Incheon region is currently a major center of international trade and manufacturing. Transportation investments have been the critical component to Incheons economic development, since linking more locations, allowing access to more diverse base of inputs such as raw materials and labor, and also others broader markets. This city has two competitive advantages for transport sector. These include the Incheon International Airport and the Incheon Port. Not to mention that Incheons railway and trucks guarantee the transport of goods by land. Incheon is located at midpoint on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, whose geographical coordinates are 12637E, 3728N. This position is a strategic point due to proximity and facility to enter in others markets. As Incheon city attends a large commercial area far beyond the bounders of South Korea, to development this work, some assumption are made about the distance covered from a cargo. So, bounders were determined to establish how far a cargo will cover. To simplify the analysis, considered that each cargo covers the maximum distance between center of Incheon and its bounders by land, while by ocean a load travels Incheon`s coastline to bounders, and by air a freight transport follows a distance between Incheon`s airport to bounders. Just those commercial activities into these limits were considered in calculation of pollutants. Table 1 shows distances covered from each vehicle mode by land, air and ocean.
Table 1 - Bounders

Transport route Land

Distance (Km) 56.12

Ocean Air

97.36 90.58

As a result of economic growth rate for Northeast Asia and an international distribution system, the amount of cargo distributed by each transportation mode in Incheon has had a positive rate of increasing. The values of cargos transported by each kind of vehicle may be verified in table 2. Although the aircraft mode had been found in last position, currently the demand of air cargo obtained a considerable growth than other transportation mode. The highly advantageous position of Incheon Airport allows that a large quantity of cargos is moved over a huge number of cities.. Also, a high percentage of transportation by railway mode can be observe, that contributes to a reduction in road congestion as well as vehicle emissions.
Table 2 Total of Cargo by vehicle mode

MODE TRUCK TRAIN SHIP AIRCRAFT

Amount of Cargo (Tonnes) 40,012 (5.2%) 621,474 (80.5%) 110,135 (14.3%) 281 (0.1%)

The emission rates vary widely from transportation mode to mode. These differences are showed in table 3. As each mode uses a type of fuel, the proportion of a specific greenhouse gas will vary depending which kind of vehicle is in service. The amount of gases emitted by train was not represented in table because the volume of emissions was considered close to values of truck. Diesel is the most frequently used fuel type in freight mode such as rail, marine and trucking. Aircraft, including those used for logistics operations are commonly powered by jet fuel.

Table 3 Amount of pollutants by each vehicle mode

Mode TRUCK SHIP AIRCRAFT

CO2 66 46.7 656

NOX 2.05 0.86 32.53

SO2 0.067 0.049 8.64

NMHC 0.58 3.89

PMdir 0.02 0.24 0.46

Results:
Initially, the amount of pollution was calculated to each mode by multiplication of parameters. The relation among parameters can be seen in Figure 1. The table 4 shows the amount of greenhouse gases emitted annually from every transportation mode to distribute the total cargo demanded into Incheon`s bounders that are established at beginning of project, and also the global estimative of each pollutant gases produced into Incheon city.
Table 4: Annual gases emission per thousand tones

Mode TRUCK SHIP AIRCRAFT Total amount

CO2 672.81 654.45 146.41

NOX 20.90 12.05 7.26

SO2 0.683 0.687 1.93 3.3

NMHC 5.91 0.87 6.78

PMdir 0.20 3.36 0.10 3.66

1473.67 40.21

From the results obtained, it was found that the largest contributor to air pollution in the city is CO2, a gas that negatively affects environmental balance at local and often at regional levels. The second largest gas emitted is NOX that causes a wide variety of health and environmental impacts. The others greenhouse gases contribute minimally to air pollution. The results indicate that emission from

freight transportation source is significant contributor to pollution at local, regional and global level. According of the pollutants data, trucking is by far the most harmful mode of goods transport. Railways seem to be more danger than maritime transport. While aircrafts looks to be less damaging to environment.

Damages:
There is no doubt about the generation of negative externalities associated with logistics systems and their damages caused by higher level of pollutants to health human and development of biodiversity. Damage considerations could include effects such as agriculture failure, human health, loss of wildlife and global warming. In order to quantify the actual impact of pollution in Incheon city, the proceeding used following two stages: firstly, determined the volume of air into Incheon city, and secondly, with the results of total amount of pollutants emitted into bounders of Incheon, have been established a relation between them and measures of Incheon. The calculation of atmospheric concentration of pollutants in Incheon was taken for the following relation: the total concentration of pollutants divided by the volume of Incheon. The table 5 shows the concentration to each pollutant in Incheon city.
Table 5 Concentration of Pollutants

Gas

CO2

NOX 4.75 g/m 4.75 ppm

SO2 0.39 g/m 0.0011 ppm

PMdir 0.433 g/m -

Concentration 174.14 g/m 0.478 ppm

References