The scope of this project includes: integrating air quality data, conducting the cause-effect analysis, overseeing both the emissions reduction coordination and the emissions control strategies between the Kao-Ping and Ju-Mao areas; reviewing the “State Implementation Plan (SIP) for County/City” and providing technical and administrative supports.
Over the past decade, there are 41% growth in Taiwan's gross national product (GDP); 24% growth in energy consumption, 16% growth in the total vehicle kilometers traveled and 3.4% growth in population, however, the nation has reduced its pollution emissions by 18.6% with improvement in PSI> 100 by 52.2%. It is obvious that through the efforts of environmental agencies have made emissions reduction and air quality improvement possible with the economic growth at the same time.
The major work of this project are listed as follows:
1. Organized weekly and monthly reports and prepared the air quality trend for year 2011. The ambient air quality monitor stations exhibited 1.4% PSI in bad days, which were the best ever in Taiwan.
2. The top five monitor stations of the highest PM10 concentrations are in the Kao-Pin and Yun-Chia-Nan areas. The percentage of pollution indicators as PM10 has increased in the Yun-Chia-Nan area over the past three years.
3. The time-series trend analysis for the regulatory pollutants showed that the O3 concentrations in the Kao-Pin area exhibited a double-peak pattern seasonally with the highest concentrations in September. The PM2.5 concentrations are the highest in the Kao-Pin area from December to next January each year.
4. The ambient air quality monitoring stations in Taiwan have all exceeded the 8-hour O3 standard 60 ppb with a slight upward trend. The 8th highest concentrations of PM2.5 have exceeded the U.S. 24-hour and annual standards.
5. Compared the methodologies in calculating 8-hour O3, 1-hour O3, 24-hr PM10, and 1-hour SO2 values for meeting the air quality standards in Taiwan and U.S and recommended the directions of setting future standards for Taiwan.
6. In the autumn and winter, the fugitive dust from the river beds is significant when the wind speed is higher than 4 m/s in the Bei-Nan area and for Joy-Swei area over 6 m/s. Through the pollution wind-rose analysis of the data from 11 key monitors, a preliminary assessment was made for the reasons of high monitored concentrations in 2009 and 2010.
7. According to our analysis regarding PM super monitor sites, the concentrations in the south are higher than the north; the high concentrations in the south are in the fall and winter. After our analysis of the PM components, only the coarse portion increased in the PM samples during the dust and sandstorm incidents.
8. Regarding the Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Stations; Toluene concentrations are the highest among 52 VOC species; Xiao Gang monitor has high ethylene concentrations affected by the nearby petrochemical industrial sources; the monitors in the metro area exhibited high O3 concentrations. Regarding the ozone photochemical potential – a product of the Maximum Incremental Reactivity (MIR) and ozone concentrations; the highest values are in the WanHwa photochemical assessment monitoring station; MIR was also provided to explain the high ozone days in September 2011 for the Kao-Ping area due to the areal VOC abnormal emissions.
This project assisted the Land/Air Eagle Inspection; reported 30 plus pollution cases and enforced 9 cases. Our project also proposed three control strategies for ozone and six different control strategies for PM in order to assist Taiwan EPA to evaluate the effective control strategies.
During the project, we finished the guidelines for the SIP submittals based on the content of the California South Coast Air Quality Management Plan and finished the “35-year Air Quality Protection Chronicle”,and “The Annual Report of Air Pollution Control in Taiwan（R.O.C）in 2010”.
Air quality and emission reduction targets in each air basin area in 2021 have been made. In order to achieve the goals for year 2021, the specified strategies (I, II, III) proposed in this report will need to be implemented together with a PM10 fugitive source control, stricter sulfur (0.3%) content for diesel fuel, retrofit diesel vehicles with particle filters and deNOx devices, and control for the VOC source categories. This project verified the O3 and PM10 air quality improvement through photochemical model for the western part of the five air basins. Strategy III can significantly improve the O3 reduction and achieve the 2016 goal. However, for PM10, it will require all the control strategies and additional measures in order to achieve the PSI>100 goal since the emission sources lacking of original pollution control strategies at current.
