A question that has been troubling me and a group of graduate research students working with me for some time is how much of the air pollution that we face in Singapore originates from outside the country? In other words, just how big a problem is transboundary air pollution here in Singapore? We’re all familiar with periodic haze events, and with the idea that the haze originates somewhere else (generally biomass burning in neighbouring countries), but what about other components of air quality? How much non-haze related air pollution from neighbouring countries reaches us here in Singapore, bearing in mind the rapid rate of industrialisation and urbanisation that has taken place not very far away in Johor and in Riau Province, the relatively lax environmental regulations in those places, the atmospheric residence time of some pollutants, including heavy metals in their gaseous phase, and the fact that while the NEA here in Singapore effectively regulates local potential sources it can do very little about sources that are located outside the country? Regulating the latter requires some form of international agreement ….
In the attached paper Letisha Fong who recently obtained her MSoc Sci degree in Geography at NUS provides what we think is evidence of increased deposition of transboundary atmospheric pollution in Singapore over the last 20 years or so, possibly linked to urbanisation and industrialisation in neighbouring parts of the region. The article attached is “in press” and is expected to appear in print later this year. Letisha used an interesting (almost novel in this region) source of information to trace changing levels of atmospheric pollution depositions over the last 100 years or so (i.e. far longer than the available instrumental record of pollution in Singapore). We will cover the approach that Letisha adoped later in the GE3246 module, along with other approaches that are used to determine and monitor air and water quality.
Hopefully I will be able to post another couple of papers that try to quantify changes in levels of depositions of transboundary atmospheric pollution in Singapore in the near future (these papers are currently under review with publishers). The evidence presented in these two papers is perhaps more convincing (it is, for example, backed up by a detailed National Emissions Inventory for Singapore) and is used to argue that we need much better international cooperation when it comes to the management of pollution in Southeast Asia ~ it would seem to be common sense that there is minimum benefit from simply tightly regulating local (i.e. within Singapore) pollution sources if harmful pollutants can simply blow over from neighbouring countries where environmental regulations are either non-existent or far less strictly enforced. In fact, under such conditions Singapore’s regulations could actually end up being economically detrimental to the country, with little in the way of real benefit to environmental quality, as polluting industries relocate to neighbouring countries creating a pollution haven effect.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab