The pressure to improve the ambient air quality in European international seaports is high. International (seagoing) ships, inland shipping, harbor activities, industry and local urban areas each play a part in polluting the air. European Union legislation, The Air Quality Directive, sets limit and target values for different pollutants like particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide. The DCMR Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has assigned DHV to perform an “EU Benchmark Air Quality” for six EU seaport cities.
Implementation of the Air Quality Directive by EU member states
The implementation of the Air Quality Directive (Directive 2008/50/EC) differs per country. Local authorities put a lot of effort in assessing the air quality, in drawing up action plans and in implementing these plans. Especially in international seaport cities with different polluting sources it is difficult to identify which polluting sources contributes what to the air quality.
The DCMR Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the regional environmental agency for the local and regional authorities operating in the Rijnmond -district, the larger 'Port of Rotterdam'-area in the Netherlands. The DCMR is very interested in the way in which other European seaport cities have implemented the Directive in their environmental policy, environmental permitting and enforcement activities. Therefore the DCMR gave DHV the task to compare how this implementation has been done by the different European Seaport Cities.
Activities performed
Data has been collected for six European seaport cities and the findings have been evaluated and compared with each other. This has resulted in a better understanding of the analogies and differences concerning the manner in which the city of Rotterdam is dealing with this issue in comparison with the other seaport cities.
The evaluation was partly based on the results of previously executed projects. Various research projects have been performed in recent years to determine the differences in ways in which the European air quality standards are implemented in the various EU member states. This information has been improved with help of interviews with representatives of the harbor organizations or Environmental Protection Agencies responsible for Air Quality issues in the selected seaport cities.
For this study the following seaport cities were selected (in order of tons of freight going through the port):
- Rotterdam
- Antwerp
- Hamburg
- Le Havre
- London
- Göteborg
Conclusions
All seaport cities discussed seem to consider the air quality issue as extremely important and deal with it seriously. However air quality is not a problem of the same magnitude in all these cities. Antwerp, Hamburg and Rotterdam are the three largest seaport cities in the European Union and seem to have problems with air quality to the same extent.
Rotterdam doesn't’t seem to have stricter requirements with the air quality issues in comparison to the other European seaport cities. The difference in levels of attention is mainly due to the manner in which the country has implemented the EU legislation into its national legislation.