Hong Kong’s Environmental Problems and Solutions

lmovementHong Kong’s environmental problems and solutions Hong Kong is one of the top financial centers in the world. Thus, the environmental quality of Hong Kong is very important. It is because the environmental quality is indirectly linking to the image of Hong Kong. Moreover, the living standard of Hong Kong residents is also under influencing of the environmental quality. However, Hong Kong is now surviving serious environmental problems. Poor air quality, noise problem and heavy traffic loads are the three important problems of Hong Kong.

The members of Hong Kong should try their best to tackle these problems. Problem of air quality in Hong Kong is serious so we need to try our best to solve it. Three are two main reasons that causing the serious air pollution problem in Hong Kong. One of them is the increasing number of vehicles. Another is the huge amount of pollutants from industrial production. First of all, vehicle is a significant source of air pollution in Hong Kong. Commercial vehicles like buses and trucks always emit a huge amount of pollutants.

These pollutants contain large amounts of particulates that worsen the air quality. Secondly, the pollutants from industrial production are giving a helping hand in causing the air pollution problem. During the process of industrial production, energy conversion is always taken place. However, energy conversion operation will give out a certain amount of pollutant. For example, nitric oxide is formed when industrial combustion takes place. Air pollution has deep influence on human as well as the natural environment. For the human, the main influence is the health effect.

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American Academy of Family Physicians (2010) explained that people who affected by air pollution will suffer from difficulty in breathing, coughing and even worsen their respiratory disease. In more serious case, the effect of air pollution may induce the permanent disease. For the natural environment, air pollution will intensify the problem of global warming. As there are a lot of particles emitted to the air, the heat released from the land will trap by these particles. Thus, the earth will become more and more hot. Once the global temperature is increase, more energy is generated in order to reduce the temperature.

However, more particles are emitted through the generate process. Thus, it will become a cycle. As we know the seriousness of the air pollution, we should take actions to deal with the problem. “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government gives high priority to controlling both street-level air pollution and smog. ” (Environmental Protection Department, 2011) To reduce the pollutants emitted from vehicles, the Environmental Protection Department (2011) pointed out that the government has adopted a tighter fuel and vehicle emission standards and strengthens vehicle emission inspections against smoky vehicles.

These measures can effectively control the pollutants emission from vehicles. One the other, the waste gas giving out from industrial production should also be regulated. The government can install system on power generation plant and develop green energy power to reduce the emission of suspended particles. As a result, pollutants from industrial production can be largely reduced. We should take immediate actions to solve the serious noise problem in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong's economy has grown in recent decades, so too has the noise that comes from transport, construction, commercial and industrial sources in this compact, densely populated city. ” (GovHK, 2011) There are two main sources of noise pollution in Hong Kong. They are noise from transportation and industry. Transportation is the main source of noise pollution. Because of their mobile nature, the areas under their influence can be extended. Vehicles produce the most extensive noise effect compare to trains and aircrafts. It is because it is difficult to control the noise produced from vehicles.

The source is thus difficult to chase as they are mobile. Heavy trucks, higher speed cars and frequent stop and start of cars always produce higher level of noise. On the other hand, industry is another important source of noise. In construction industry, high level of noise is always produced from the use of equipments. There are piling, compressor and bulldozers that produce high level of noise. Moreover, noise will also produced in manufacturing industry. During the operation of machines, noise is generated. Noise has more impacts than we expected. It will affect our health, daily life and environmental quality. The most immediate and acute health effect of excessive noise is impairment of hearing. ” (Singh. N, 2004) Prolonged exposure to noise can damage our ear cells. This may caused temporary or even permanent hearing loss. Also, noise can violate our cardiovascular system. It will make us hard to focus and concentrate as well as causing headaches. For the effect on our daily life, people’s working efficiency will be affected. Under noisy environment, teaching and learning will become less effective. Teachers and students need to pay more effort on concentrating on their work.

To tackle the noise problem, the Environmental Protection Department (2011) purposed to reduce traffic noise through careful land use planning. Better road planning will divert the noisy road from the residential areas and thus reduce the disturbance to the residents. Lastly, there is an urged to deal with to problem of traffic congestion. “The problem of traffic congestion in Hong Kong is caused by the lack using of public transport” (Lo I, 2004). Hong Kong is such a small place but there are a few million vehicles on the roads. We can see that there are a lot of private vehicles running on the road everyday.

The increasing of private vehicles increases the demand of the usage of the roads. As more and more vehicles are riding on the roads at the same time, the road system will then cannot afford. Traffic congestion occurs. Another cause of traffic congestion is less well-planned road system in Hong Kong. In Central, traffic congestion is common. It is because of the poor road system. Many vehicles will rush to Central at the rush hour, but the poor road system cannot help to divert the vehicles flow rate. So many vehicles are concentrated in Central and caused traffic congestion.

What are the impacts of traffic congestion? Firstly, Lo I. (2004) claimed that people are needed to pay heavy time cost for traffic congestion. The wasting of time may lead to the loss of business, late for work and school. So traffic congestion can also cause the economics loss. In addition, the image of Hong Kong will also be affect. Hong Kong is an international financial center that gives the world an image of efficient. However, traffic congestion will make the damages of this image. People will wonder why Hong Kong, such a well-developed city, is having the problem of traffic congestion.

So, measures should be taking to relieve this problem. The government should have a better road planning in order to release the heavy traffic burden in Central. Education cannot be avoided in order to educate the citizen to use more public transport. To conclude, poor air quality, noise problem and traffic congestion are the three issues that the government needs to deal with. These problems are not only affected the people’s standard of living but also the image of Hong Kong. It is no doubt that the Hong Kong people should focus on these problems and solve them together.

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