AIR POLLUTION CONTROL IN AN INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT (A CASE STUDY OF PORT-HARCOURT REFINERY RIVER STATE)
INTRODUCTION
The word pollution has been used in many contexts with different connotative meaning. However, pollution can be seen as the contaminating the environment. The problem of air pollution has become has become a major concern to both global and local environmental policies formulators purported to address its devastating trend, particularly in growing megacities of the world. The negative effects of the phenomenon are more pronounced in megacities of developing countries than in developed ones. Port Harcourt, as an industrialized, commercialized and an emerging megacity in Nigeria, has been subjected to several predictions of the negative impacts of changing climatic conditions partly caused by ubiquitous air pollution. Efforts at stemming the tide of the increasing challenges of air pollution worldwide have significantly been thwarted by inadequate funding, and awareness programs. This ugly trend has made it pertinent to review the policies regarding climate change and its negative impacts on the lives and properties of teeming inhabitants of Port Harcourt. A review of these policies will entail a wider coverage of research and analysis of the adverse effect of air pollution on land and its implication on the value of land. Air pollution constitute to 20% of land depreciation, this is because a polluted environment does not attract development and population growth. Transportation and property are important in physical and economic development of towns and cities all over the world. Property and land values tend to increase in areas with expanding transportation networks, and increase less rapidly in areas without such improvements. Rapid and continued rise in housing and land prices are expected in cities with transportation improvements and rapid economic and population growth (Goldberg, 1970). Man, nations, regions and the world would be severely limited in development without transportation, which is a key factor for physical and economic growth (Oyesiku, 2002). Transportation systems and land use are interdependent. According to Bailey, Mokhtarian, and Littlel (2008), transportation route is part of distinct development pattern or road network and mostly described by regular street patterns as an indispensable factor of human existence, development and civilization. The route network coupled with increased transport investment result in changed levels of accessibility reflected through Cost Benefit Analysis, savings in travel time, and other benefits.
Road networks are observed in terms of its components of accessibility, connectivity, traffic density, level of service, compactness, and density of particular roads. Level of service is a measure by which the quality of service on transportation devices or infrastructure is determined, and it is a holistic approach considering several factors regarded as measures of traffic density and congestion rather than overall speed of the journey (Mannering, Walter, and Scott, 2004). 1 Access to major roads provides relative advantages consequent upon which commercial users locate to enjoy the advantages. Modern businesses, industries, trades and general activities depend on transport and transport infrastructure, with movement of goods and services from place to place becoming vital and inseparable aspects of global and urban economic survival. Developments of various transportation modes have become pivotal to physical and economic developments. Such modes include human porterage, railways, ropeways and cableways, pipelines, inland waterways, sea, air, and roads (Said and Shah, 2008). According to Oyesiku (2002), urbanization in Nigeria has a long history in its growth and development. Extensive development being a feature of the 19th and 20th centuries, with concentration of economic and administrative decision-making in Lagos, Ibadan, Kaduna, Jos, and Enugu, and high degree of specialization and larger population associated with greater specialization of goods and services. Wyatt (1997) states that urban areas have tendency to develop at nodal points in transport network and places with good road network will possess relative advantage over locations having poor network. Urban locations with such relative advantage are found where different transport routes converge with high degree of compactness, connectivity, density, length and accessibility exhibited within the intra- and inter- urban road networks. Port Harcourt is a typical example in the history of growth and development of cities in Nigeria. The city became capital of River state in 1976 with improved road networks developed to cater for increase in concentration of pedestrian and vehicular movements. Similarly, commercial activities like banking, retail/wholesale businesses, and professional services congregated to take advantage of nearness to seat of governance. Concentration of activities attracted consumers and ancillary service providers. This partly caused increase in demand for commercial space and its concomitant effects on commercial property values along arterial roads in the metropolis. The present position concerning commercial properties in Port Harcourt is that majority are located along arterial roads that deliver much of the vehicular and pedestrian movements. There have been increases in rental values along the individual arterial roads although not at equal rates. It is against this background that this research analyzed the arterial roads, determined the levels of accessibility, connectivity, traffic density of the individual arterial roads, examined the pattern of commercial property values and the relationship between the explanatory variables of the road network in Port Harcourt in Nigeria. However the higher the population density, the higher the transport facility, and the higher the level of air pollution which is a hydra monster to climatic change
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The problem of air pollution control in an industrial environment in west Africa especially Nigeria, this is so because some policies which ought to be put in place to prohibit air pollution are not properly implemented. The major problem of air pollution arise from the used of heavy duty plant, machinery and vehicle which releases carbon monoxide into the atmosphere which contribute to the major source of air pollution in River state.
AIR POLLUTION CONTROL IN AN INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENT (A CASE STUDY OF PORT-HARCOURT REFINERY RIVER STATE)
