The Airport and the Environment: Air

As according to environmental research, the most primary environmental issues that come from airport operation are Green House Gasses emissions, noise pollution, waste, congestion and land utilization, in addition, the FAA also points out to water contamination. In my opinion, air pollution, noise pollution and water pollution should be the main categories, as they encapsulate other important categories mentioned above. I would however add soil or land contamination, and third party risk as subcategories to be studied, as these categories thoroughly impact wildlife and the general population. I found these categories to be the most determinate after reviewing Visser, H., & Wijnen, R. (2008), chapter 1’s analysis of the facts, where noise effects, air quality and pollutant emissions and third party risk (or the risk created by the concentration of aircraft crashing into populated areas) are studied in depth. Although it is hard for me to determine a most critical factor, due to the underlying importance of the 5 explained above; in this blog post I have decided to discuss Air Pollution, as due to current trends regarding climate change, we can view the importance behind GHG (green house gasses) and the tremendous effects it has had in our current world.
Visser et al (2008) define air quality and pollutant emissions as the variety of gaseous and particulate emissions which potentially create harmful effects in air quality and global climate change as a result of aviation-related activities. Although aviation plays a small part in the overall creation of air pollutants and GHG, it still has an important effect in the environment. As detailed by the FAA, aircraft use creates a variety of emissions (CO2, H2O, NOx, CO and SOx or VOCs). VOCs are particularly important as some of its particles are hazardous air pollutants. Ground emissions are mostly the creationist of local air quality pollutants, while greenhouse gasses tend to be created at altitude. An example of pollution resulting from aircraft is experienced by children of Flint, Michigan, in East San Jose. This area is densely trafficked by piston-engine airplanes, and because of leaded aviation fuel emissions, federal air quality regulations for lead are likely to be exceeded during high seasons. Local charitable organizations hope the FAA will push for more aggressive solutions, as In 2017, these smaller, gasoline-powered general aviation planes produced 468 tons of lead pollutants. There are numerous strategies that can be used in order to prevent air contamination (although it is not possible to eliminate it completely). Firstly, we can use tools given to us by the FAA, such as the Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT). This is a software that helps us model many factors of emissions, including air quality consequences. By doing so, we are able to facilitate environmental review activities and plan for a more successful and benign use of aircraft. In addition, we could also make the switch of use of lead-based gasoline aircraft to a more sustainable fuel option. I also suggest airports should conduct periodic inspection of pollution sources, and in addition utilize gas treatment facilities, or pollutant control facilities, in order to minimize the pollutants that have already been created. When planning is successful, we are able to better reuse and recycle resources, saving power and limiting our emissions.
Resources: Cabrera, Y. (2022, February 16). Santa Clara County bans toxic aviation fuel at its airports. Grist. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://grist.org/transportation/california-county-bans-toxic-aviation-fuel-at-its-airports/ Federal Aviation Administration . (2005). Federal Aviation Administration Office of Environment and ... Aviation & Emissions A Primer. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/envir_policy/media/aeprimer.pdf Federal Aviation Administration . (n.d.). Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT). FAA. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://aedt.faa.gov/ Visser, H., & Wijnen, R. (2008). Management of the environmental impact at airport operations. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated.

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