In the last 20 years, NILU has been actively involved in research and cooperation projects in China. Current activities include the coordination of two projects to support SO2 emission trading in the Shanxi province and to establish an up-to-date air quality (AQ) information system for the Hubei province. Both initiatives are funded by EuropeAid, EU – China Environmental Governance Programme (EGP).
The IBIS-Shanxi project; “Impact-based environmental index and labelling system to support SO2 emission trading in Shanxi province”
The IBIS-Shanxi project was initialized to support SO2 emission trading in Shanxi province by developing an environmental index, and to help local environmental institutes to actively engage and assist private enterprises in emission trading.
Under the lead of NILU, IBIS-Shanxi will develop an innovative prototype of environmental index and labelling system based on the evaluation concerning impact on human health and local ecosystems. The development will be based on the evaluation of the existing environmental labelling system applied to industries in Shanxi. The newly developed index and labelling system will be demonstrated in 10 selected enterprises by running air quality dispersion models, in combination with the population distribution and indicators of ecosystem status in Shanxi.
Two case studies in private enterprises will be carried out and technical solutions to reduce emissions, moving towards a greener label, and to obtain SO2 credits will be developed. Recommendations to improve the emission trading system will be given based on the impact assessment to human health and ecosystem service, data compilation, and evaluation of cost associated with technologies.
IBIS-Shanxi Consortium: NILU—Norwegian Institute for Air Research (coordinator; Norway), Shanxi Emission Trading Center (China), Shanxi Environmental Information Center (China) and Czestochowa University of Technology (Poland). More information at http://shanxi-ibis.info/
The Hubei-AQ project; “Hubei Air Quality Information and Early Warning System”
The aim of the Hubei-AQ project is to establish an up-to-date air quality (AQ) information system for nine cities in the Hubei province, to provide more accurate and adequate AQ information for the public and to enhance the awareness of AQ status among the public for the protection of human health. With NILU as coordinator, the project will link global, regional and local scale modelling tools and databases to provide AQ forecasting information and early warning for both public and authorities in Wuhan city.
To do so, Hubei-AQ will provide a sophisticated set of tools and dissemination mechanisms to not only make information on air pollution and health effects available for the general public and expert users, but also allow users to send formal requests to the web administration. The system will allow local authorities to view, manage, quality control and extract statistics on their monitoring data. The local authorities will produce and present the information to the public through the web based AirQUIS Information software which is developed at NILU.
Hubei-AQ Consortium: NILU—Norwegian Institute for Air Research (coordinator; Norway) and Hubei Environment Monitoring Central Station (China). More information at http://hubei-aq.info/
Contact person: Li Liu: lli@nilu.no (IBIS-Shanxi and Hubei-AQ coordinator)