Haze Problem Research Articles

Kabut Asap, Ancaman Terhadap Human Security dan ASEAN Way

Forest fires and haze become annual trend phenomena of the failure Southeast asia regional and related institutions in prevention efforts of haze problems. Comprehensive Monitoring and rules enforcement to prohibition forest fires shows how authorized institutions have difficulties and boundaries to punish the land owners who burn the forests, and to stop cleaning land by burning the forest and land. This research describes the causes of haze occur in Southeast asia, the threats of haze pollution and why ASEAN through its ASEAN Way not success yet in solving haze pollution that contributes insecure human security of millions people in this region. This research apply neoliberal institutionalism approach and collect the data from library research. This research shows that in regional level, ASEAN continuesly do cooperation and formulate policies to solve the regional haze problems. In Ministerial Meeting Level, ASEAN has reviewed Regional Haze Action Plan and finally sign the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, an agreement which is binded and ratified all the member of ASEAN. 
 Keywords: Haze, Human Security, ASEAN Way

ASEAN Aggrement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. Effective ?

This paper analyzes how ASEAN can deal with the haze problem caused by its member countries and then cross their borders so that it becomes a common focus in ASEAN countries. Then ASEAN made an agreement for its member countries with the aim of overcoming the haze problem which was referred to in the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. Based on the question of the effectiveness of the agreement, the authors assume that the agreement is considered ineffective in solving the haze problem in the Southeast Asia Region. The reason for this is considered to be due to a set of norms adopted by ASEAN member countries in the ASEAN Way. These norms then make member countries solve problems by adhering to the principles of the ASEAN Way including non-intervention, consensus and so on. Responding to problems in developing countries in ASEAN which tend to prioritize their economy, making environmental problems such as smog tend to be sidelined. Therefore, this paper will explain more about the effectiveness of the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in particular to address the haze problem in ASEAN member countries based on the ASEAN way.

KOMNAS HAM'S HUMAN RIGHTS JURISDICTION OVER BUSINESSES INVOLVED IN THE HAZE CRISIS

Indonesia’s forest fires have caused a serious haze problem nationally and in the Southeast Asian region, which has caused harm to the human rights to life, health and a healthy environment, work, education, and many others. The forest fires largely stem from harmful slash-and-burn methods of land clearing, done at large scales by corporations. Judicial mechanisms have proven ineffective to deter violating corporations and bring justice to victims. From a legal standpoint, Komnas HAM’s quasi-jurisdictional powers allow it to act as a non-judicial grievance mechanism for victims in the haze crisis and against violating corporations. However, issues with the non-binding nature of its reports and mediation, inability to compel violating corporations to participate in its investigation and mediation, as well as declining trust in Komnas HAM’s integrity may prove to be significant barriers to the effective exercise of jurisdiction and the provision of effective remedies to victims. Komnas HAM and ELSAM’s national human rights plan, issued in 2017, is a step in the right direction. However, further steps are required from a legislative standpoint to broaden Komnas HAM’s mandate for it to effectively perform its functions, in the haze crisis and beyond.

Frequency-Based Haze and Rain Removal Network (FHRR-Net) with Deep Convolutional Encoder-Decoder

Removing haze or rain is one of the difficult problems in computer vision applications. On real-world road images, haze and rain often occur together, but traditional methods cannot solve this imaging problem. To address rain and haze problems simultaneously, we present a robust network-based framework consisting of three steps: image decomposition using guided filters, a frequency-based haze and rain removal network (FHRR-Net), and image restoration based on an atmospheric scattering model using predicted transmission maps and predicted rain-removed images. We demonstrate FHRR-Net’s capabilities with synthesized and real-world road images. Experimental results show that our trained framework has superior performance on synthesized and real-world road test images compared with state-of-the-art methods. We use PSNR (peak signal-to-noise) and SSIM (structural similarity index) indicators to evaluate our model quantitatively, showing that our methods have the highest PSNR and SSIM values. Furthermore, we demonstrate through experiments that our method is useful in real-world vision applications.

Region-Based Dehazing via Dual-Supervised Triple-Convolutional Network

Most physical model-based dehazing methods are subject to contrast degradation in a dark or shadow region because of the mismatch between the physical model and real haze. This degradation decreases the quality of dehazed images. Furthermore, the retinex-haze combined models can cause the brightness saturation problem in a haze region. For this reason, the retinex-haze combined approaches are not appropriate to enhance the real-world haze images. To solve these problems, we present a novel region-based dehazing method via dual-supervised triple-convolutional network (TCN). More specifically, the proposed network first simulates the mismatch problem based on the region-model. Next, we then train the proposed triple-convolutional network, which can estimate the degraded regions. We then present a novel dual-supervised learning method to efficiently train the networks using a non-ideal dataset. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in solving complex haze problems. The output of the proposed network has a high-similarity index in most cases for various benchmark dataset. Our approach also produces high-quality images in real haze image datasets.

Afforesting as a Way to Eliminate Haze and to Fertilize Plants

Haze problem causes serious health risk and troubles to the human being. Traditional manners such as reducing vehicle uses and biomass burning etc. don’t workwell as was expected. More effective ways to address haze problem are urgently in need. From literatures, haze contains many vital elements plants growth, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, such thatabsorbing them as the fertilizers for forests or other ecological systems would be a more effective way to tackle the haze problem. In fact, the components in haze are suitable for fertilizing plants because they come from burningoil and coals which are dead plants and animals long time ago. Sincesoils with water in them are feasible to dissolve the ions in haze, combined with ecological functions of forests such as water transparency, harmful gases absorption, forests and other ecological systems can effectively absorb the haze and turnthem into the fertilizers for plants continuously; therefore, the haze would be eliminated with infinite capacity. In summary, haze would be eaten by these ecological systems and turn them into life again. Utilizingafforesting, haze can be eliminated in an environment friendly and constructive way, they would become the nutrition in living things and circulate in the biosphere.In this way, not only haze can be absorbed, but also the plants are fertilized, more over such process is infinite.

Time Series Analysis and Forecasting of Air Pollution Particulate Matter (PM2.5): An SARIMA and Factor Analysis Approach

Current development of Pakistan’s economy, transportation and industry with the improvement of urbanization, environmental pollution problems have gradually become prominent, but this is contrary to people’s vision of pursuing a high-quality life. Now the problem of haze, photochemical problems in the air, and global warming is already a key issue of global concern. This is focused on the ambient air quality of Lahore city of Pakistan. The study reveals that the particulate matter in the Lahore season (PM2.5, PM10) exceeds Pakistan’s National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS). Correlation study suggests the positive correlation between the particulate matter and other mass concentration particles like Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Oxide (NO), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2). Higher values of CO/NO suggest that mobile sources are one of the major factors of this increase in NO. Further estimation of backward trajectory is done by the Hybrid-Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model which provides the path of those particles in the last year period and the source of origin is from Afghanistan. This study provides in depth analysis of all factors of air pollutants by correlation between those factors. Prediction of future concentration of PM2.5 is predicted using the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model which gives the increasing value of PM2.5 in next year and provides the lowest and highest predicts (more than $100~\mu \text{g}/\text{m}^{3}$ ).

Air Quality Index and the Urgency of Environmental Education in Kalimantan

As one of the logical consequences of the transformation process from agricultural to industrial societies, human activities contribute some pressures to our environment, especially air quality. Kalimantan Island, as the third-largest island on Earth, expected to be the world’s lungs, transboundary massive haze problems frequently occurred on this island, especially between 2011-2015. Since the fire forest started from the Indonesia side of this island, reliable information about air quality in Kalimantan-Indonesia and environmental education’s urgency toward this result becomes essential to explore. Air Quality Index (AQI) is measured by a passive sampling method with SO2 dan NO2 as pollutants’ parameters. These two parameters are recognized as a valid measurement of air pollutants, strongly affect human health, and are understandable by ordinary citizens, especially middle school level students. AQI reached 94.27, which is categorized as a good-quality index. Among the provinces, the highest AQI was reached by East and North Kalimantan with 97.63, while South Kalimantan has the lowest with 91.41. Furthermore, the NO2 parameter contributed much larger than SO2 parameters in all provinces. AQI Kalimantan tends to increase, although South Kalimantan tended to have a lower air quality index than other provinces from year to year. This result drives comprehensive support from the education sector to build environmental understanding. From an educational perspective, this result shows the urgency of enhancing science education with air quality discussion. We suggest a possible enhancement in substance and its transformation section and the Science-Environment-Technology-Society section in Science for Junior and Senior High School. The procedure of AQI measurement and the urgency of maintaining AQI are needed to be integrated into the science curriculum.

Performance Analysis of Single-Well Enhanced Geothermal System for Building Heating.

Deep borehole heat exchanger (DBHE) technology does not depend on the existence of hot water reservoir and can be used in various regions. However, the heat extraction from DBHE can hardly be improved due to poor thermal conductivity of rocks. Here, a single-well enhanced geothermal system (SWEGS) is proposed, which has a larger heat-exchange area of artificial reservoir created by fracturing hydrothermal technology. We find that, due to heat convection between rocks and fluid, the extracted thermal output for SWEGS is 4772.73 kW, which is 10.64 times of that of DBHE. By changing the injection water temperature, volume flow rate, and artificial reservoir volume, it is easy to adjust the extracted thermal output to meet the requirement of building thermal loads varying with outdoor air temperature. Understanding these will enable us to better apply SWEGS technology and solve the fog and haze problem easily and efficiently.

Techno-Socio Approaches in Peatland Fire Control in Indonesia

Peatland fire has been the most prominent cause of transboundary haze problem in the ASEAN region since 1997/1998. The impacts are not locally but also globally identified. The paper aims to elaborate on how peatland fire occurred and techno-socio approaches for fire control. The study was based on a Focus Group Discussion of relevant stakeholders and literature review conducted using descriptive and content analyses. The study found that peatland fire occurred mostly caused by human activities in land preparation. Efforts on peatland fire control have been conducted by various agencies with various approaches. Technological approaches have been developed for peatland fire control in terms of fire prevention stage on early warning system, early detection system, and fire suppression stage on early suppression as well as of post-fire activities on burned area estimation. On the other hand, social approaches have also been developed and implemented in terms of community empowerment and incentives scheme for zero burning implementation. No doubt, synergy between socio-economic approaches and technological approaches have to be prioritized in peatland fire control in Indonesia with multi/transdisciplinary manners.

Regularity of a Crisis: Media Framing of the 2015 Transboundary Haze Issue in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia

The problem of the haze caused by huge forest fires persists as an annual transboundary problem for Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. In 2015, the problem was worse than ever before, affecting many countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and causing respiratory ailments for more than half a million Indonesians. This study explores the media framing of the haze problem in Indonesia from June to December 2015. Using Entman’s framing approach, it investigates how media outlets from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore covered the crisis. Articles from six online media outlets published in these three countries were analysed. Using cluster analysis, this research identified three frames as follows: (1) crisis frame, (2) immediate action frame, and (3) regular problem frame. The first cluster/frame consists of articles giving high salience to all problems and causes of the forest fires provoking the haze. In contrast, the second frame mostly ignores causes and problems and focuses almost exclusively on the need for immediate action. The third frame, which represents more than 60% of the articles, covers the haze problem as a regular issue without emphasizing prominently either the different aspects of the problem itself or its causes and solutions. Further results show that the media in Singapore and Malaysia used the crisis frame more often than the media in Indonesia. Keywords: F raming, h aze problem, c ontent analysis, Southeast Asia, c omparative research.

Tailored Alkali Resistance of DeNOx Catalysts by Improving Redox Properties and Activating Adsorbed Reactive Species

SummaryIt is still challenging to develop strongly alkali-resistant catalysts for selective catalytic reduction of NOx with NH3. It is generally believed that the maintenance of acidity is the most important factor because of neutral effects of alkali. This work discovers that the redox properties rather than acidity play decisive roles in improving alkali resistance of some specific catalyst systems. K-poisoned Fe-decorated SO42−-modified CeZr oxide (Fe/SO42−/CeZr) catalysts show decreased acidity but reserve the high redox properties. The higher reactivity of NHx species induced by K poisoning compensates for the decreased amount of adsorbed NHx, leading to a desired reaction efficiency between adsorbed NHx and nitrate species. This study provides a unique perspective in designing an alkali-resistant deNOx catalyst via improving redox properties and activating the reactivities of NHx species rather than routinely increasing acidic sites for NHx adsorption, which is of significance for academic interests and practical applications.

Exploring wintertime regional haze in northeast China: role of coal and biomass burning

Abstract. As one of the intense anthropogenic emission regions across the relatively high-latitude (>40∘ N) areas on Earth, northeast China faces the serious problem of regional haze during the heating period of the year. Aerosols in polluted haze in northeast China are poorly understood compared with the haze in other regions of China such as the North China Plain. Here, we integrated bulk chemical measurements with single-particle analysis from transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) to obtain morphology, size, composition, aging process, and sources of aerosol particles collected during two contrasting regional haze events (Haze-I and Haze-II) at an urban site and a mountain site in northeast China and further investigated the causes of regional haze formation. Haze-I evolved from moderate (average PM2.5: 76–108 µg m−3) to heavy pollution (151–154 µg m−3), with the dominant PM2.5 component changing from organic matter (OM) (39–45 µg m−3) to secondary inorganic ions (94–101 µg m−3). Similarly, TEM observations showed that S-rich particles internally mixed with OM (named S-OM) increased from 29 % to 60 % by number at an urban site and 64 % to 74 % at a mountain site from the moderate Haze-I to heavy Haze-I events, and 75 %–96 % of Haze-I particles included primary OM. We found that change of wind direction caused Haze-I to rapidly turn into Haze-II (185–223 µg m−3) with predominantly OM (98–133 µg m−3) and unexpectedly high K+ (3.8 µg m−3). TEM also showed that K-rich particles internally mixed with OM (named K-OM) increased from 4 %–5 % by number to 50 %–52 %. The results indicate that there were different sources of aerosol particles causing the Haze-I and Haze-II formation: Haze-I was mainly induced by accumulation of primary OM emitted from residential coal burning and further deteriorated by secondary aerosol formation via heterogeneous reactions; Haze-II was caused by long-range transport of agricultural biomass burning emissions. Moreover, abundant primary OM particles emitted from coal and biomass burning were considered to be one typical brown carbon, i.e., tar balls. Our study highlights that large numbers of light-absorbing tar balls significantly contribute to winter haze formation in northeast China and they should be further considered in climate models.

Mitigating air problems and producing renewable energy with solar downdraft tower

Over the past three decades, China, especially in the megacity areas, has suffered from air pollution and heavy haze with its decades-long burst of economic growth and rapidly expanding clout as an industrial giant. The important two elements of air pollutant in China are the fine particles (PM 2.5-PM 10) and non-natural greenhouse gases. To overcome these problems, in this study, we propose a novel inversion solar chimney approach for mitigating the air pollution and haze problems in the megacities of China by using water to scavenge air pollution through spraying water into the atmosphere. For a water drop floating in air or falling through air, the sensible heat of air would transfer to the latent heat of droplets and will cause a decrease in drop size. In a quite short transient time, the droplet evaporates and cools down to air ‘wet-bulb’ temperature. The Direct air capture devices (DAC) are installed at the bottom of the solar downdraft tower to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Optimalisasi Komunikasi Bencana dalam Mengurangi Kabut Asap di Provinsi Riau

This study aims to identify the optimization of disaster communication in reducing haze, using a qualitative descriptive approach. The results show that the implementation of disaster communication has been carried out optimally by BPBD of Riau Province, it can be seen from various factors that have been implemented related to disaster communication. These four factors are Costomer Focus, Leadership commitment, Situational awareness, and Media partnership. Although the four factors are also influenced by other things that occur in the field, such as human error, land exploration by companies and weather conditions. This research can be a reference for stakeholders or the government related to the handling of haze. Further in-depth research is needed related to disaster communication in Riau Province, so that the haze problem that occurs every year can be handled optimally

Simulating forest fire spread and fire-fighting using cellular automata

In response to the transboundary haze problem in Southeast Asia, a physical model is adopted to simulate the spread and extinguishing of fire. This study is done in the context of Dumai, Indonesia, as it is one of the areas that significantly contribute to the haze problem. This model aims to provide perspectives on the persistence of forest fires despite fire-fighting efforts. While existing models using Huygens’ principle of wave propagation allow an understanding of the natural spread of fire, our model applies cellular automata to predict and analyse the effects of fire-fighting intervention strategies, with the spatial and propagation dynamics of fire considered. Cellular automata is an active area of research among physicists, and is widely used by chemists and biologists to model many types of natural phenomena. We note similarities between our model predictions and observations of real-world phenomena. Analyses on the factors that affect the spread of fire are presented, in order to understand which ones are dominant in differing situations. This provides insights on optimum conditions for fire-fighting efforts, and suggests guidelines that may be considered for fire control in future forest fires.

Tracing China's inter-regional cost transfer of air pollution through domestic supply chains

Abstract: Provinces that provide emission-intensive products now are facing huge financial pressure to control regional air pollutant emissions. Assessing the actual regional air emission abatement costs of each province from the consumer perspective can help to clarify regional pollution abatement responsibilities and formulate sound monetary compensation policies between consumers and producers in China. In this study, we employ a multiregional input-output model to estimate the total air pollution abatement costs and economic benefits caused by interregional trade for each region in 2012. The results indicate that regions with higher GDP per capita, such as the Beijing-Tianjin, East Coast, and South Coast regions, outsourced total pollution abatement costs (TPAC) for air emissions to undeveloped central and western regions via interregional trade within China. Based on a comparison of the cost-benefit index among regions, wealthy regions left nearly 80% of their consumption-based value added locally but outsourced more than 50% of their consumption-based TPAC to other regions, especially to northwestern and central regions with lower GDP per capita. Such a mismatch necessitates in-depth cross-boundary collaboration for control of air pollutant emissions in regions suffering terrible haze problems, such as the North China Plain.

Analysis of Urban Landscape Planning Based on Haze Environment

With the acceleration of the urbanization process, the domestic economy has achieved rapid growth, but with the deterioration of the atmospheric environment, especially in cities with rapid industrial development, haze has been the primary air pollutant in recent years. All cities have been hit by haze. Frequent haze weather has seriously affected the lives of urban people, which makes us have to pay attention to how to deal with the haze problem. This article starts with the dangers of haze, analyzes the design principles of urban landscape planning, the active role of plant greening in the management of haze, and the method of arranging landscape plants. It shows that whether from the perspective of aesthetics, or from the function of anti-haze and environmental protection, the selection of a landscape design method that suits local conditions in the design will definitely be one of the major trends in urban landscape planning.

Sustainability in corn production management: A multi-objective approach

Improper disposal of agricultural wastes, especially by open burning in the fields, generates enormous amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Particulate Matters (PM). This study uses multi-objective optimization to analyze the environmental and economic impacts of agricultural production management. The focus is on the sustainability of corn production management encompassing corn-kernel production and management of crop residues. Maximization of economic benefits and minimization of environmental impact are taken into the objective function in order to find trade-offs between them. Comparisons are made between greener disposal methods suggested in the proposed model (organic fertilizer and biomass fuel briquette production) and the common method in use today. The lifetimes of atmospheric CO2 are set to be 1, 5, 25, 50, 100 and 200 yrs. The weighted sum approach is applied to solve the proposed model. The case study illustrating the model involves a regional economic and tourism hub recently plagued by haze problems from open burning of crop residues. With results in all cases showing that adding proper waste disposals leads to total profit reduction of only 0.35–1.96%, this study shows that the correct disposal method can greatly reduce environmental problems while only slightly affecting total profit from production.

Supply chain analysis of smokeless charcoal from maize residues

Open burning of agricultural residues after harvesting season is usually practiced as a disposal means for highland farms. The practice has partially contributed to the haze problem in the northern region of Southeast Asia during February to April every year. This can drastically affect human health in the long run. In this work, alternative means to utilize maize residues as a bio-renewable fuel source is explored. These maize residues can potentially be used as a raw material to substitute or partially replace wood chips in production of smokeless charcoal. Local charcoal producers in Maehongson, northern Thailand have recently looked into alternative raw materials for smokeless charcoal production since the demand for domestic and aboard has shoot up to about 6000 tons this year. Possibility of using maize residues is paramount. According to such requirement, this work focused on cost analysis of transforming maize residues into high-added-value smokeless charcoal. The analysis covered from maize harvesting and residue collection methods, logistics approach to charcoal production site, production cost and product transportation cost. Primary and secondary data collection, site survey, interviews with stakeholders and cost modeling were performed. It was found that the maize farmers could earn up to 15 USD/ton from sales of the maize residues to charcoal production plants, while the plants remain profitable.