Acid rain in Asia

There are both local and regional impacts from acid rain in Asia. For example, damage ofthe historic Taj Mahal in Agra, India, is the result of the atmospheric pollution from local acid rain formed due to local industrial activity. Similarly, in China, acid rain... 

Peart M. R., 1995. The occurrence of acid rain in Hong Kong. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Climate and Life in the Asia Pacific, University of Brunei Darussalam, 10-13 April 1995, edited by SirinandaK. U., 10-19. 

John Miller did not suggest that power plants are umelated to acid rain in the eastern U.S., as misleadingly implied in the item. On the contrary. Miller speculated that the acid rain he studied in Hawaii might originate with industrial pollution from Asia that is carried all the way across the Pacific. Precipitation in Antarctica and Samoa was found in Miller s and other s studies to be piistine, not polluted. (See data in Chapter 2.)... 

The human impact on the environment affects many areas of our lives and future. One example is the effect of acid rain on biodiversity, the diversity of living things. In the prairies that extend across the heartlands of North America and Asia, native plants have evolved that can survive even nitrogen-poor soil and drought. By studying prairie plants, scientists hope to breed food plants that will be hardy sources of food in times of drought. However, acid rain is making some of these plants extinct. 

Tanaka, K., Ohta, K., Haddad, P. R., Fritz, J. S., Lee, K.-R, Hasebe, K., Ieuji, A., and Miyanaga, A., Acid-rain monitoring in East Asia with a portable-type ion-exclusion cation-exchange chromatographic analyzer, ]. Chromatogr. A, 850, 311, 1999. 

As regards the pollutants monitoring, from the measurements available so far it could be concluded that acid rain is coming to be a major problem in Asia. In many industrially developed and new developed countries such as Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand etc., values of pH <5 are encountered at many sites, and they represent more than 50% of monitored rain events on a regional scale. In some developing countries of South-East Asia (Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia) most rainwater pH measurements tend to be around 5.6, the pH of natural rainwater, and the acid rain precipitation is mainly due to localized industrial pollution. There is some evidence that pH values below 5 at unpolluted sites may be due to the contribution of weak organic acids, such as formic and acetic acids (Radojevic, 1998). 

Radojevic, M., 1998. Acid rain monitoring in East and South East Asia. In V. N Bashkin and S-U. Park (Eds.). Acid Deposition and Ecosystem Sensitivity in East Asia, Nova Science Publishers, Ltd., pp. 95-122. 

Discuss acid rain problems in South East Asia. Emphasize your attention on acid deposition effects on biogeochemical cycling in Tropical Rain Forest ecosystems. 

Acid rain is not a new phenomenon either in Asia or in other parts of the world. Acid rain was first reported in Europe in the 19th century (Ducros, 1854). Acid rain and its harmful effects have been extensively studied in the industrialized countries of Europe and North America over the last thirty years (Radojevic and Harrison, 1992). 

Over the last ten years, the presence of acid rain has been identified at nnmerous sites in Asia. Recent industrial development in Asia has raised concerns about actual and potential acidification in the region (Rodhe et al, 1992 ESCAP, 1995). Current and projected manifestation of acid forming compound emissions and deposition with indication of main sensitive ecosystems is shown in Table 1. 

Acid rain is observed regularly at many sites in East Asia, especially in China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. Lower pHs tend to be observed in industrialized countries and regions while higher pH values tend to be observed in areas with little or no industries. 

Many of the poorer countries in East and Southeast Asia lack the technical expertise and instrumentation to set up adequate acid rain and air quality monitoring networks. Clearly, there is a need for international assistance in terms of providing training and financial resources to these countries. 

In most acid rain areas of Asia, the sulfur oxides are the major contributor to the problem, but the nitrogen oxides predominate in Japan and Singapore. Sources of these gases are shown in Chapter 1. 

Here we will consider the appearance of synergetic effects of acid rain and haze in some places of Southeast Asia. The example will be shown from a case study in Brunei Darussalam (Radojevic and Tan, 2000). 

The experimental data obtained in various countries of East Asia allow us to consider the applicability of methodology of critical loads related to an assessment of ecosystem sensitivity to acid rains. The critical load (CL) and Environmental Risk... 

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