Estimation of Air Pollution from Ships in Port Area: A Case Study of Yeosu and Gwangyang Ports in Korea

With the rapid development of global trade and maritime transportation, a comprehensive emission inventory is necessary to control air pollution from ships as well as to comply with international environmental standards. The purpose of this study is to calculate the volume of emissions from ships in Yeosu and Gwangyang ports in Korea based on a bottom-up approach and supported by the data from the automatic identification system (AIS) and Korean port management information system (Port-MIS). Specifically, a real set of data on specifications of all ships operating at the port in 2019 was collected and an analysis of ship movement using AIS data was conducted by the authors in this study to divide the route into cruising and maneuvering phases as well as to estimate engine’s load factor. Finally, results show that the total amount of air emissions from ships at the port area was 558 thousand tons, which is 96% from CO2 and 66% from hoteling mode. Additionally, container and tanker ships together emitted the highest volume of air pollution accounting for a share of 73%.