scholarly journals Vehicular fuel composition and atmospheric emissions in South China: Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 3687-3707 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Y. Tsai ◽  
L. Y. Chan ◽  
D. R. Blake ◽  
K. W. Chu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
South China ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Evaporative Loss ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Pearl River ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Vehicular emission is an important source of air pollutants in urban cities in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of South China. In order to study the impact of vehicular fuel on air quality, several commonly used fuel samples were collected in four main cities in the PRD region – Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Macau and Zhuhai, and analyzed for their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) composition. Source profiles of the vehicular fuels used in these cities were constructed and are believed to be the first reported for the PRD region. The C8–C10 hydrocarbons were the main constituents of diesel. Different from diesel, gasoline used in the PRD region was mainly comprised of lighter C4–C7 hydrocarbons, with toluene and i-pentane being the two most abundant species. The benzene content in the Guangzhou and Zhuhai gasoline samples were higher than that in Hong Kong and Macau and exceeded the maximum benzene levels for Mainland China unleaded gasoline. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) samples were collected only in Hong Kong and were comprised mainly of n-butane, propane and i-butane. Traffic samples indicated that evaporative loss and vehicular combustion were the primary contributors to elevated VOC levels in roadside atmospheres. Significant i-pentane and toluene concentrations were observed in roadside atmospheres in all four cities. Ratio of i-pentane in gasoline samples to that in roadside samples were calculated and this showed that the degree of evaporative loss was higher in Guangzhou and Zhuhai than that in Hong Kong and Macau. We suggest the difference is due to the better maintenance and more new cars in Hong Kong and Macau. From tunnel samples collected in Hong Kong in two different years, we found that the relative amount of propane, i-butane, and n-butane increased between 2001 to 2003, consistent with the 40% increase in LPG fueled vehicles. Propane to butanes ratios were calculated for LPG and tunnels samples, and the comparable ratios illustrated the LPG leakages from LPG fueled vehicles crossing the tunnel.

scholarly journals Vehicular fuel composition and atmospheric emissions in South China: Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 3281-3288 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Y. Tsai ◽  
L. Y. Chan ◽  
D. R. Blake ◽  
K. W. Chu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
South China ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Evaporative Loss ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Pearl River ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Vehicular emission is an important source of air pollutants in urban cities in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of South China. In order to study the impact of evaporative loss of vehicular fuel on air quality, several commonly used fuel samples were collected in four main cities in the PRD region – Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Macau and Zhuhai, and analyzed for their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) composition. Source profiles of vapors of the vehicular fuels used in these cities were constructed and are believed to be the first reported for the PRD region. The C8-C10 hydrocarbons were the main constituents of diesel. Different from diesel, gasoline used in the PRD region was mainly comprised of lighter C4-C7 hydrocarbons, with toluene and i-pentane being the two most abundant species. The toluene content in the Hong Kong and Macau gasoline samples were higher than that in Guangzhou and Zhuhai, while the reverse was true for the benzene content. The benzene levels in Guangzhou and Zhuhai exceeded the maximum allowable benzene levels for Mainland China unleaded gasoline. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) samples were collected only in Hong Kong and were comprised mainly of n-butane, propane and i-butane. Traffic samples indicated that evaporative loss and vehicular combustion were the primary contributors to elevated VOC levels in roadside atmospheres. Significant i-pentane and toluene concentrations were observed in roadside atmospheres in all four cities. Ratio of i-pentane in gasoline vapors to that in roadside samples were calculated and this showed that the degree of evaporative loss were higher in Guangzhou and Zhuhai than that in Hong Kong and Macau. We suggest the difference is due to the better maintenance and more new cars in Hong Kong and Macau. From tunnel samples collected in Hong Kong in two different years, we found that the relative amount of propane, i-butane, and n-butane increased between 2001 to 2003, consistent with the 40% increase in LPG fueled vehicles. Propane to butanes ratios were calculated for LPG samples and tunnels samples, and the comparable ratios illustrated the LPG leakages from LPG fueled vehicles crossing the tunnel.

scholarly journals Vehicular emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from a tunnel study in Hong Kong

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (19) ◽  
pp. 7491-7504 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. F. Ho ◽  
S. C. Lee ◽  
W. K. Ho ◽  
D. R. Blake ◽  
Y. Cheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
Average Concentration ◽  
Ozone Formation ◽  
Liquefied Petroleum Gas ◽  
Key Species ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Maximum Increment

Abstract. Vehicle emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were determined at the Shing Mun Tunnel, Hong Kong in summer and winter of 2003. One hundred and ten VOCs were quantified in this study. The average concentration of the total measured VOCs at the inlet and outlet of the tunnel were 81 250 pptv and 117 850 pptv, respectively. Among the 110 compounds, ethene, ethyne and toluene were the most abundant species in the tunnel. The total measured VOC emission factors ranged from 67 mg veh−1 km−1 to 148 mg veh−1 km−1, with an average of 115 mg veh−1 km−1. The five most abundant VOCs observed in the tunnel were, in decreasing order, ethene, toluene, n-butane, propane and i-pentane. These five most abundant species contributed over 38% of the total measured VOCs emitted. The high propane and n-butane emissions were found to be associated with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)-fueled taxis. Fair correlations were observed between marker species (ethene, i-pentane, n-nonane, and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes – BTEX) with fractions of gasoline-fueled or diesel-fueled vehicles. Moreover, ethene, ethyne, and propene are the key species that were abundant in the tunnel but not in gasoline vapors or LPG. The ozone formation potential from the VOCs in Hong Kong was evaluated by the maximum increment reactivity (MIR). It was found to be 568 mg of ozone per vehicle per kilometer traveled. Among them, ethene, propene and toluene contribute most to the ozone-formation reactivity.

The information ethics perception gaps between Chinese and American students

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 473-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Ling-hsing Chang ◽  
Jim Q. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Information Ethics ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Espoused Theory ◽  
American Students ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of Chinese culture on the information ethics perception gaps between Chinese and American students. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative approach, this study utilizes Kohlberg’s Cognitive Moral Development model and an open-ended questionnaire to measure and analyze the gaps among information ethics perceptions of students from Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the USA, and to assess the extent to which the gaps are influenced by Chinese culture. Findings Students’ perceptions of intellectual property, information accuracy, privacy, and accessibility (PAPA) are deeply influenced by national culture. Sub-cultures have significant impact on the perceptions. Political systems, history, and legal environment may also play a role in the differences of PAPA perceptions among the three Chinese societies. The study also revealed that accuracy and intellectual property are the most deficient areas of moral developments in both Chinese and American samples. Research limitations/implications The sample sizes from Hong Kong and the USA were relatively small due to resource and time constraints. In addition, the subjects from Hong Kong and the USA were a little bit older than the subjects from Taiwan and Mainland China due to the fact that universities in HK and USA tend to have more non-traditional students than in universities in Mainland China and Taiwan. Second, the questionnaire is a limited means of studying moral reasoning because the results are likely to reflect espoused theory rather than theory-in-use. Practical implications The educational implication of this study calls for a renewed approach to educate students on the importance of information ethics for the sake of sustained economic development. Originality/value The novelty of this research lies in its interpretation of students’ PAPA perceptions and fresh insights from a Chinese guanxi perspective.

The Impact of US Monetary Policy and Other External Shocks on the Hong Kong Economy

2019 ◽  
pp. 239-260
Author(s):  
Hongyi Chen ◽  
Andrew Tsang
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Monetary Policies ◽  
Macroprudential Policies ◽  
Loan Quality ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Us Monetary Policy

This chapter uses the factor-augmented vector autoregression framework to study the impact on the Hong Kong economy of the diverging monetary policies by the Fed, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Bank of Japan (BoJ), as well as the slowdown of the Mainland economy. The empirical results show that shocks in US monetary policy rate mainly affect interest rate-sensitive sectors in Hong Kong and that monetary easing from the ECB and the BoJ somewhat offsets the impact of tightening of the Fed. Real variables such as real GDP growth and the unemployment rate are more sensitive to the economic slowdown in Mainland China. However, Hong Kong’s financial stability, particularly with regard to loan quality, banks’ capital and liquidity, is well maintained by macroprudential policies, suggesting that Hong Kong’s financial system is resilient to external shocks.

Perceived Threat of a Linguistic Community and Context Effect on Attitude toward Immigration in Hong Kong

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 250-273
Author(s):  
Francis L.F. Lee ◽  
Hai Liang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Linguistic Community ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Mandarin Speakers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Abstract Typically grounded in a discussion of contact vs. threat theory, much research has examined the impact of the presence of ethnic minorities in residential contexts on people’s attitude toward immigration. Yet, there has not been much evidence regarding whether the presence of a linguistically-defined minority can create similar impact under specific political conditions. This article examines Hong Kong, where the arrival of immigrants from mainland China has aroused controversies. The presence of Mandarin speakers, under the contemporary conditions, could be perceived as representing the cultural threat posed by China onto the city. Data from representative surveys were combined with district-level census data. The analysis shows that people living in a district with higher proportions of residents using Mandarin as the usual spoken language indeed favored more restrictive immigration policies. Contextual presence of Mandarin speakers also moderated the impact of tolerance and holding of negative stereotypes on attitude toward immigration.

scholarly journals Reconstruction of the track and a simulation of the storm surge associated with the calamitous typhoon affecting the Pearl River Estuary in September 1874

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Hing Yim Mok ◽  
Wing Hong Lui ◽  
Dick Shum Lau ◽  
Wang Chun Woo
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
Storm Surge ◽  
South China ◽  
River Estuary ◽  
Pearl River Estuary ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
Pearl River ◽  
The Pearl River Estuary ◽  
The Pearl River

Abstract. A typhoon struck the Pearl River Estuary in September 1874 (“Typhoon 1874”), causing extensive damage and claiming thousands of lives in the region during its passage. Like many other historical typhoons, the deadliest impact of the typhoon was its associated storm surge. In this paper, a possible track of the typhoon was reconstructed through an analysis of the historical qualitative and quantitative weather observations in the Philippines, the northern part of the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangdong recorded in various historical documents. The magnitudes of the associated storm surges and storm tides in Hong Kong and Macao were also quantitatively estimated using storm surge model and analogue astronomical tides based on the reconstructed track. The results indicated that the typhoon could have crossed the Luzon Strait from the western North Pacific and moved across the northeastern part of the South China Sea to strike the Pearl River Estuary more or less as a super typhoon in the early morning on 23 September 1874. The typhoon passed about 60 km south–southwest of Hong Kong and made landfall in Macao, bringing maximum storm tides of around 4.9 m above the Hong Kong Chart Datum (http://www.geodetic.gov.hk/smo/gsi/Data/pdf/explanatorynotes.pdf, last access: 3 January 2020) at the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong and around 5.4 m above the Macao Chart Datum (https://mosref.dscc.gov.mo/Help/ref/Macaucoord_2009_web_EN_v201702.pdf, last access: 3 January 2020) at Porto Interior (inner harbour) in Macao. Both the maximum storm tide (4.88 m above the Hong Kong Chart Datum) and maximum storm surge (2.83 m) brought by Typhoon 1874 at the Victoria Harbour estimated in this study are higher than all the existing records since the establishment of the Hong Kong Observatory in 1883, including the recent records set by super typhoon Mangkhut on 16 September 2018.

scholarly journals How Africans Pursue Low-End Globalization in Hong Kong and Mainland China

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Mathews ◽  
Yang Yang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
South China ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Upper Crust ◽  
Counterfeit Goods ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
World Regions ◽  
The Law

This article looks at the livelihoods and lives of African traders coming to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. These traders are practising “low-end globalization”, involving small amounts of capital, and semilegal or illegal transactions under the radar of the law. The article first considers who these traders are, portraying them as, typically, members of the upper crust of their home societies. It then considers these traders in Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong, a building that is an entrepôt between China and the developing world. Finally, it looks at traders’ livelihoods and lives in Guangzhou, South China, and traders’ efforts to succeed in mainland China. The article argues that one essential economic role China plays today is in manufacturing the cheap, sometimes counterfeit goods that enable Africa and other developing-world regions to experience globalization; the African traders who come to China help make this possible.

scholarly journals Observations of aerosol optical properties at a coastal site in Hong Kong, South China

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 2653-2671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaping Wang ◽  
Aki Virkkula ◽  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Shuncheng Lee ◽  
Yicheng Shen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Optical Properties ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Light Scattering ◽  
South China ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
Light Extinction ◽  
Aerosol Optical Properties ◽  
Air Masses ◽  
Rural Sites ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Temporal variations in aerosol optical properties were investigated at a coastal station in Hong Kong based on the field observation from February 2012 to February 2015. At 550 nm, the average light-scattering (151 ± 100 Mm−1) and absorption coefficients (8.3 ± 6.1 Mm−1) were lower than most of other rural sites in eastern China, while the single-scattering albedo (SSA  =  0.93 ± 0.05) was relatively higher compared with other rural sites in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. Correlation analysis confirmed that the darkest aerosols were smaller in particle size and showed strong scattering wavelength dependencies, indicating possible sources from fresh emissions close to the measurement site. Particles with Dp of 200–800 nm were less in number, yet contributed the most to the light-scattering coefficients among submicron particles. In summer, both ΔBC / ΔCO and SO2 / BC peaked, indicating the impact of nearby combustion sources on this site. Multi-year backward Lagrangian particle dispersion modeling (LPDM) and potential source contribution (PSC) analysis revealed that these particles were mainly from the air masses that moved southward over Shenzhen and urban Hong Kong and the polluted marine air containing ship exhausts. These fresh emission sources led to low SSA during summer months. For winter and autumn months, contrarily, ΔBC / ΔCO and SO2 / BC were relatively low, showing that the site was more under influence of well-mixed air masses from long-range transport including from South China, East China coastal regions, and aged aerosol transported over the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan, causing stronger abilities of light extinction and larger variability of aerosol optical properties. Our results showed that ship emissions in the vicinity of Hong Kong could have visible impact on the light-scattering and absorption abilities as well as SSA at Hok Tsui.

Transborder Infrastructure

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Hirsh
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Pearl River ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Economic Framework ◽  
The Pearl River Delta ◽  
Passenger Flows ◽  
The Pearl River ◽  
Migration Regimes

The second chapter investigates the “upstream” check-in system that allows passengers in Mainland China to fly through Hong Kong's airport without going through customs and immigration procedures. These facilities serve travelers whose cross-border movement is limited by their income or citizenship, such as tourists or traders from Africa and the Middle East. At the upstream terminal in China, travelers print their boarding pass and proceed through emigration. A sealed ferry then takes them across the border to Hong Kong, where they are transferred to an underground train that takes them to their departure gate. Isolated from other passenger flows, these “upstream” travelers technically never enter Hong Kong. Mapping the movement of passengers between Mainland China and the airport, this chapter documents the insertion of aviation infrastructure into marginal neighborhoods and unspectacular structures. It analyzes the aesthetics of transborder infrastructure in order to interpret broader discrepancies in global migration regimes in the political and economic framework of the Pearl River Delta.

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