Regional air quality impacts of ship emissions from megaports in the Yangtze River Delta, China, and in Northern Europe

• Applicant: Dr. Volker Matthias
• Subject Area: Atmospheric Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 392026931

Shipping emissions are one of the most significant sources of ambient air pollutants in port and offshore areas. In response to the threat for human health and the environment, that is connected with ship emissions, national and international bodies and environmental agencies are about to take measures for supporting abatement strategies such as fuel change, exhaust gas cleaning technologies or on-shore power supply. In order to provide a sound foundation for decisions to be made, research about the impact of shipping emissions considering the local environment - in terms of chemical composition of the atmosphere, geographical situation and climate/weather conditions - is needed urgently. A suitable research approach includes real world assessments of emission factors and the chemical composition of plumes in the near-field of exhaust stacks, the establishment of localized shipping emission inventories, and the improvement and adaptation of dispersion and chemical transformation models for port areas. Consequently, this project aims to: (1) Carry out on-board measurements of emissions from representative ships in megaports in the Yangtze River Delta in China (Shanghai port and Ningbo-Zhoushan port) including a speciation of gaseous and particulate compounds. The evaluation of these measurements will yield an advanced set of load dependent emission functions and emission factors for all relevant air pollutants. The results will be compared with available emission factors from literature and with observations in the European megaports of Hamburg and Rotterdam. (2) Establish highly-resolved model-ready ship emission inventories containing all relevant pollutants based on shipping activity data. (3) Improve dispersion and chemical transformation models for exhaust gas plumes from ships by means of evaluating model results with observational data from port areas. (4) Estimate the impact of shipping emissions on air quality in megaport regions at different scales by applying both regional (COSMO-CLM/CMAQ) and nested city scale (CityChem) models. (5) Analyze differences and common features between Shanghai port and Hamburg port concerning the role of the ports for the air quality in and around the city. This will involve an evaluation the new emission standards in both ports in recent years in order to provide insight into the effectiveness of abatement strategies specific to each region

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China
• Partner Organisation: National Natural Science Foundation of China
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Armin Aulinger; Professor Dr. Markus Quante
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Yingjun Chen, Ph.D.