Declining of air quality will lead to the decrease of visibility. The problem is getting more serious. According to the Hong Kong Observatory, low visibility occurred 18% of the time, which is the highest on record, in 2004. And the number of days in visibility which was less than eight km rose to 102 in 2005 from 40 in 1997. Not only does the air pollution have deep influence on environment, also citizens’ health. The Hong Kong Medical Association estimates that air pollution can cause asthma, impair lung function.
And raise the risk of cardio-respiratory death by 2 to 3 percent for every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of pollutants. There are three main aspects of the cause of the problem. The first aspect concerns the vehicle emissions. With the increasing number of private cars these years and the slow introduction of environmentally-friendly fuels, the amount of air pollutants released by vehicles keeps increasing, thereby worsen the air quality. Secondly, the improper design of buildings can also account for the problems.
Due to the limited land supplied, Hong Kong tends to be densely populated while the buildings are usually designed to be as tall as possible. Therefore, all the buildings form a barrier blocked the ventilation of air. Consequently, pollutants like suspended particles are trapped in air, causing polluted air. Cross-border pollution is the third aspect. There are numerous of factories built in the Guangdong Province in Mainland. The industrial air pollutants such as nitro dioxide can be carried to Hong Kong by winds.
The Essay on Air Pollution: Causes, Problems, and Solutions In Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of the busiest cities in the world. It is not only prominent as an Asian commercial center, but also famous for its air pollution, which haunts the lives of thousands of Hong Kong people and wastes billions of dollars of the government and the private sectors every year. It is an unchanging fact that air pollution in Hong Kong not only results in a waste of massive amounts of ...
More pollutants are brought by the northern monsoon in winter especially. The air quality becomes extraordinarily terrible. To tackle the problem of air pollution, we should focus on the causes and work out effective solutions accordingly. To deal with the first cause, the amount of vehicle emissions should be controlled properly. Actually, this has been implemented by the Hong Kong government before. For example, installing catalytic converters and using unleaded fuels. However, the even worse air quality nowadays has proved that these traditional means is not enough.
Apart from these, the government should pay more efforts on controlling the number of private cars on the road. Raising the registration fee of the newly purchased vehicles and levying heavier tax on vehicle ownership are really effective measures to minimize the number of private vehicles so that the emission of pollutants can be lowered gradually. Secondly, to achieve more environmentally friendly designed buildings, new measures and laws should be set up for the developers and architects to refer to.
For example, in order to let the new buildings to be surrounded with good ventilation, density and height of buildings should be reasonably limited and be stated in black and white as laws. Besides, in order to keep the air with low suspended particles content, a certain percentage of proportion of green areas in the urban should be set. Good road planning and design can also be achieved with clear regulations and rules. And all the aforementioned laws are just meaningless without strict enforcement.
This explains why frequent inspection and execution by the government is always needed to match with an ideal city planning. Finally, cross-border pollution should be solved by cross-border cooperation. Hong Kong government needs to negotiate with the Guangdong government to reach some agreements on how the air quality in Hong Kong can be improved. Setting up monitoring systems, restricting the number of factories in Guangdong and controlling the industrial emission of pollutants are suggested to be included in the agreements.
The Essay on Is Hong Kong Still a Shoppers’ Paradise?
... when compared to the visitors’ home countries, air quality in Hong Kong Still has room of improvement. Air pollution not only causes discomfort to the tourists, ... tourists that their performances influence tourists’ impression towards Hong Kong. Another suggestion is that government should cooperate with Guangdong province. Since most of ...
We all are living under the same atmosphere. Air pollution is not only the matter of Hong Kong, but a worldwide problem. It explains the importance of cooperation between different regions. Every citizen should pay extra attentions on the seriousness of the air pollution in Hong Kong. We cannot hide ourselves away from this crucial fact as air pollution could be disastrous. We should be more aware of it and we can contribute a little every day apart from relying on the government to improve the air quality.
