Impact of Ship Emission Control Area Policies on Port Air Quality—A Case Study of Ningbo Port, China

Siling Lu and Fan Zhou ()
Additional contact information
Siling Lu: College of Information Engineering, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China
Fan Zhou: College of Information Engineering, Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 201306, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The implementation effectiveness of ship emission control area (ECA) policies can be effectively evaluated using econometric models. However, existing studies mainly focus on changes in SO 2 concentrations in the air. In order to comprehensively assess the impact of ECA policies on air quality, this study takes Ningbo Port in China as an example and uses a regression discontinuity (RD) model to analyze the influence of ship emissions around the wharf on concentrations of SO 2 , NO 2 , and particulate matter (PM) in the air. The results indicate that individual ships’ activities within the monitoring area (within 300 m) make a relatively small contribution to the concentration of SO 2 in the air and do not form a significant breakpoint. However, there is a noticeable breakpoint in the concentration of NO 2 around the monitoring point as the ship approaches. At the same time, the variation range of PM 2.5 is significantly greater than that of PM 10 , which aligns with the characteristics of PM emitted by ships. The experimental results have passed three robustness tests, demonstrating that the current policy on ship ECAs has a positive limiting effect on SO 2 emissions and, to some extent, reduces PM emissions. However, further reductions in ship emissions may require more restrictions in nitrogen oxide emissions.

Keywords: air pollution; ship emissions; emission control area; Ningbo Port (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/9/3659/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/9/3659/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:9:p:3659-:d:1383997

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().