Lasse Johansson

Personalized Environmental Service Orchestration for Quality of Life Improvement

Environmental and meteorological conditions are of utmost importance for the population, as they are strongly related to the quality of life. Citizens are increasingly aware of this importance. This awareness results in an increasing demand for environmental information tailored to their specific needs and background. We present an environmental information platform that supports submission of user queries related to environmental conditions and orchestrates results from complementary services to generate personalized suggestions. From the technical viewpoint, the system discovers and processes reliable data in the web in order to convert them into knowledge. At run time, this information is transferred into an ontology-structured knowledge base, from which then information relevant to the specific user is deduced and communicated in the language of their preference. The platform is demonstrated with real world use cases in the south area of Finland showing the impact it can have on the quality of everyday life.

Cleaner fuels for ships provide public health benefits with climate tradeoffs

We evaluate public health and climate impacts of low-sulphur fuels in global shipping. Using high-resolution emissions inventories, integrated atmospheric models, and health risk functions, we assess ship-related PM2.5 pollution impacts in 2020 with and without the use of low-sulphur fuels. Cleaner marine fuels will reduce ship-related premature mortality and morbidity by 34 and 54%, respectively, representing a ~ 2.6% global reduction in PM2.5 cardiovascular and lung cancer deaths and a ~3.6% global reduction in childhood asthma. Despite these reductions, low-sulphur marine fuels will still account for ~250k deaths and ~6.4 M childhood asthma cases annually, and more stringent standards beyond 2020 may provide additional health benefits. Lower sulphur fuels also reduce radiative cooling from ship aerosols by ~80%, equating to a ~3% increase in current estimates of total anthropogenic forcing. Therefore, stronger international shipping policies may need to achieve climate and health targets by jointly reducing greenhouse gases and air pollution.Aerosol pollution from shipping contributes to cooling but also leads to premature mortality and morbidity. Here the authors combine emission inventories, atmospheric models and health risk functions to show how cleaner marine fuels will reduce premature deaths and childhood asthma but results in larger warming.

Evaluation of Air Quality Using Dynamic Land-use Regression and Fusion of Environmental Information

A novel FMI-ENFUSER model is presented, an application which utilizes both Land Use Regression and dispersion modelling. We will show that with this combination of techniques the hourly concentration of particle matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and NO2 can be accurately predicted in the selected urban test site, when wind vector data and nearby pollutant measurements are used as input data. Also, the seasonal average NO2 concentrations in 38 measurement stations are compared against modelled concentrations. FMI-ENFUSER can be used in other regions as well given that an extensive training dataset and GIS-information exists for the region in question.

Phosphorus flows on ships: Case study from the Baltic Sea

Material flow analysis is used to identify and quantify the flow of phosphorus (P) in ship-generated food waste and wastewater. Passenger, cruise, RoPax and cargo ships in the Baltic Sea were investigated in three scenarios: (1) if all waste is discharged to sea, (2) if all waste is disposed of ashore or (3) if the food waste fraction is disposed of ashore and wastewater is treated on-board. About 107 tonnes of P is generated annually in the waste streams, with highest contribution of approximately 62 tonnes (58%) from wastewater in the ship-category RoPax. Approximately 24 tonnes of P is contained in the food waste generated by the ships in the study. Forthcoming regulations over allowed nutrient concentrations in sewage will lead to 80% reduction in P from passenger ships and can reduce about 31 tonnes of P entering the Baltic Sea environment. If both sewage and grey water instead are offloaded in port reception facilities, about 76 tonnes of P-reduction to the sea can be reached. As most phosphorus recovery practices currently only are available on land it is recommended to direct the waste streams to port reception facilities for further treatment ashore.

Modelling Assessment of Atmospheric Composition and Air Quality in Eastern and Southern Asia

Current chapter outlines the model-based assessment of air pollution in Eastern and Southern Asia. The chemistry transport model SILAM, which covers the main sources of the air pollutants in the region, was applied to evaluate their influence on spatial and temporal characteristics of the regional pollution pattern. We showed that, apart from the anthropogenic sources, air pollution in several parts of Eastern and Southern Asia is dominated by other sources, such as desert dust and vegetation fires. In particular, South-East Asia and Eastern Russia are heavily impacted by the biomass burning smoke, largely from agriculture fires. Fire-induced pollution is also episodically significant in several provinces of China.

Risk assessment of bilge water discharges in two Baltic shipping lanes

Environmental concentrations and effects of bilge water contaminants in two Baltic Sea areas were estimated from modelling of discharge rates and analytical data on bilge water from seven ships. Biodegradation of bilge water oil was accounted for and annual water concentrations were estimated to peak in late spring, which coincides with the beginning of a period with extensive biological activities in the sea. Concentrations on bilge water metals were calculated both as water concentrations and as the annual contribution of metals to sediments. The predicted bilge water concentrations of oil and metal in the marine environment were estimated to be 4 to 8 orders of magnitude lower than reported toxic concentrations. However, available toxicity data are based on short term exposure and there is to date limited information on toxic effects of the small but chronically elevated contaminant concentrations derived from bilge water discharge and other operational shipping activities.

Estimates of source spectra of ships from long term recordings in the Baltic sea

Estimates of the noise source spectra of ships based on long term measurements in the Baltic sea are presented. The measurement data were obtained by a hydrophone deployed near a major shipping lane south of the Island Oland. Data from over 2000 close-by passages were recorded during a five month period from August to December 2014. For each passage, ship-to-hydrophone transmission loss (TL) spectra were computed by sound propagation modelling using 1. bathymetry data from the Baltic Sea Bathymetry Database (BSBD) 2. sound speed profiles from the HIROMB oceanographic model, 3. seabed parameters obtained by acoustic inversion of data from a calibrated source and 4. AIS data providing information on each ships position. These TL spectra were then subtracted from the received noise spectra to estimate the free field source level (SL) spectra for each passage. The SL were compared to predictions by some existing models of noise emission from ships. Input parameters to the models, including e.g. ship length, width, speed, displacement and engine mass, were obtained from AIS data and the STEAM database of the Finnish Metereological Institute (FMI).

Fusion of Air Quality Information: Evaluation of the Enfuser-Methdoology in Finland and a Case Study in China

We describe a modelling system (FMI-ENFUSER), which fuses environmental information for the assessment of urban air quality in a high resolution based on local sensor network, meteorological data and a collection of GIS-datasets. With this combination of techniques the hourly concentration of particle matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and NO2 can be accurately predicted in several selected urban test sites in Finland. We also show and discuss the first results from test sites in China and India. The methodology can be used in any region where a proper training dataset and GIS-information exists.

A Comprehensive Modelling Approach for the Assessment of Global Shipping Emissions

Emissions originating from global shipping traffic were modelled using the Ship Traffic Emission Assessment Model (STEAM), which uses Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to describe ship traffic activity. The model output can be utilized in regional air quality models on an hourly basis and can also be used to assess the impacts of miscellaneous emission abatement scenarios (e.g., changes of fuel grade, the introduction of scrubbers and slow-steaming scenarios). We present preliminary results on global shipping emissions and activities for the year 2015 and show that the presented results are qualitatively in agreement with the results presented in the 3rd IMO Greenhouse Gas Study. The main challenge for the global emission modelling of shipping is the treatment of the large number of vessels operating globally, for which it is difficult to obtain technical vessel specifications. To address this challenge we propose a solution that includes the use of a web crawler and an algorithm that can be used to complete the missing technical details. Another issue is the sparsity of satellite based AIS-data which makes it necessary to analyse individual route segments and occasionally apply advanced route generation algorithms.