Pathologic analysis of control plans for air pollution management in tehran metropolis: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Regarding the importance of air pollution issue for large cities, as Tehran metropolis, many plans, programs, projects and regulations have been developed to manage urban air pollution. However, most of them failed to decline the pollution. The purpose of this study is to pathologically analyze air-pollution control plans in order to offer effective solutions for Tehran metropolis.
METHODS: A qualitative content analysis and a semi-structured interview with 14 practicing professionals were used to identify key causes and sources of Tehran's air pollution, to recognize challenges and obstacles towards effective performance of air-pollution control plans in this metropolitan area, and to suggest the most effective controlling solutions.
RESULTS: Challenges related to air-pollution control plans can be divided into two major categories: Firstly lack of integrated and organized stewardship and secondly those related to political, economical, social and technical environmental abbreviated as PEST, challenges. For effective control of the Tehran air pollution, the following eight controlling alternatives were identified: Systematization of plan preparation process, organizing the stewardship, standardization and utilization of new technologies and professional experts, cultural and infrastructural development, realization of social justice, developing coordination and controlling mechanisms, improving citizen's participatory capacity, and focusing on effective management of fuel and energy.
CONCLUSIONS: Controlling air pollution in Tehran should be considered as a priority for policymakers to make enforcements through applying a systemic cycle of preparation effective and comprehensive plans. Further, implement the enforcements and evaluate the environmental impact of the plans through involving all stakeholders.

INTRODUCTION

Pollution mainly includes all tiny particles in the air, which are produced due to human or natural activities.[1] Since the centralization of human activities is associated with metabolic human interactions in urban areas, different pollutants enter into the air easily and cause the urban environment more vulnerable.[2] It is such that the world health organization (1992), has addressed the air pollution as a serious health problem.[3]

Improper use of fuel and inappropriate topography of Tehran, capital of Iran, caused heavy air pollution due to the entrance of approximately 1.5 million tons of pollutants each year. Therefore, the combination of natural and artificial factors causes Tehran to be one of the most polluted cities in the world, standing by Mexico City, Beijing, Cairo, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Bangkok.[4]

Air pollution has also caused painful events all around the world: The pollution event in Meuse (1930), in which 63 people experienced respiratory problems; or the death of more than 400 people in London due to the contaminated thick smog in 1952 are two examples of such irreversible events.[1] According to an environmental program of the United Nations, 4-8% of premature deaths are due to exposure to particulate matter in both outdoor and indoor environments, with potentially 500,000 excess deaths annually due to particulate matter in outdoor situations.[5] Moreover, the air quality control agency's report in 2005 indicates that more than 4500 people are dying every year in Tehran due to air pollution.[6]

The most important sources of air pollution can be divided into four key groups including overcrowding,[7] economic growth,[8] natural factors as geographical situation, topography, temperature inversion, etc.),[9] as well as mobile and stationary sources, e.g., non-standards and poor fuel consumption of motor vehicles, industries in and around the city, home heating and cooling systems.[110]

Depending on the type and sources of pollutants, metropolises around the world took different measures to control the problem of air pollution. Some experiences exist from industrialized and developing countries. South Africa has benefited from a collection of best legal solutions to reduce the air pollution; among them are objective and standard setting, status quo assessment and priority area delineation, control strategy preparation, and implementation.[11] China has also taken effective measures to control air pollution including Integrated Monitoring Program on Acidification of Chinese Terrestrial Systems, permanent control of vehicle's emissions, increasing the quality of fuels, taking advantage of new technologies, developing transportation systems, providing 5 year plans to understand causes and sources of pollution, current status, effects, and control of acid rain.[1213141516] Economic and industry growth along with overcrowding in India caused city planners to take serious measures including banning polluting vehicles, developing roads, escalating standards and regulations enforcement, etc.[3] In Italy, special measures have been taken for energy management in industry, transportation systems, and domestic systems.[17]

Despite the efforts of many countries, some of them have been successful to reduce the air pollution while others failed to effectively and efficiently control this health problem. Although numerous plans and policies have been implemented for controlling air pollution in South Africa, but they had not been successful. The main reasons for this failure were related to some major challenges such as lack of relationship between the district and local municipalities, lack of relationship between provincial and local authorities, plan's integration, public's roles, technical capabilities in programs, extending a partial focus on some polluter sources, as well as lack of a systemic approach for air pollution planning, plans and climate change management, shortage of funding, etc.[11] Improper prioritization of environmental intervention, lack of funding, unwillingness of the countries to plan with a systemic approach, lack of enforcement and poor communication between all public and private sectors are the most principal factors causing the failure to successfully control air pollution.[18192021]

From 1955 several case and cross-sectional plans, programs and projects had been developed individually or as a part of a national document to control the air pollution of Tehran. They are including the first 5 year development plan (1988-1993), clean air plan (1995), transportation emission reduction project (1997), comprehensive plan of Tehran's combating air pollution (1997), second 5 year development plan (1996-2000), third 5 year development plan (2001-2005), 20 year visionary plan (2005), forth 5 year development plan (2006-2010), Tehran's master plan (2007), fifth 5 year development plan (2011-2015) and master plan of metropolise's combating air pollution (2011).[22] Despite the fact that all these plans had been precisely codified, the present evidence implies that expected results based on reducing the air pollution have not been met. The latter may be because of the lack of an integrated stewardship responsible for regulating, coordinating and monitoring the process and the obtained results of air pollution control plans.[23] Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the air pollution controlling plans with a pathologic approach to identify a set of practical solutions for Tehran.

This paper bears a twofold purpose: First, to pathologically analyze the air pollution control plans of Tehran from the viewpoint of experts and secondly to offer appropriate and effective solutions for air pollution control.

METHODS

This study was approved by Tehran University, Tehran, Iran. Ethical concerns were considered in all steps of the study. Informed consent was obtained from participants. A descriptive case study method was used for pathologic analysis of air pollution control plans to suggest solutions for improving the air quality of Tehran metropolis. The research team provided a semi-comprehensive literature review of more than 70 articles of different metropolises worldwide for providing an initial conceptual framework as a springboard for developing the interview questions. The scope of the review is limited to developed and developing metropolises (China, Italy, India and South Africa) which faced the same air pollution difficulties as Tehran does.

By developing the framework, a qualitative content analysis was drawn to identify the manifest and latent contents concerning different air pollutants and plans for their control. The key contents for organizing the interview questions were as follows: (1) Causes and sources of air pollution, (2) challenges and obstacles towards effective performance of air pollution control plans and (3) the most effective controlling solutions for air pollution in metropolitan areas.

A semi-structured face-to-face interview was conducted to survey Tehran's air pollution control plans, from the abovementioned aspects. The participants were selected by snow-balling sampling and according to their context of work, i.e., practicing professionals as well as professors at Tehran, Tarbiyat Modarres and Shahid Beheshti Universities. (all located in Tehran City). Finally, 14 experts, professors and managers took part in an interview. They were asked to answer nine main open-ended questions. The context of the interview consisted of the extent to which air pollution control plans of Iran are appropriate and ways to cope with the air pollutants in different sectors as industry, transportation systems and domestic system, with regard to other metropolise's experience in the very similar field. In addition, they were asked to provide more information about the relevant issues, when applicable. As the interview sessions precede, the quality, relevancy and comprehensiveness of questions were developed simultaneously. Afterwards, the opinions collected from the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. Whole interview texts were determined as a unit of analysis during the process. All the opinions (meaning units) were reviewed, condensed and labeled as a code through a back and forth movement between the whole and part of the interview texts. Then, the codes with the same meaning grouped together under higher order heading to create categories (27 sub-category and 8 category) in a way that each group of codes dealt with a specific issue or content area. Next, the primitive title and content of all categories and sub-categories were discussed by the article research team. To conclude, the underlying meanings, which were the latent contents of the categories were formulated into four main themes.

RESULTS

The analysis results of all 14 viewpoints from practicing professionals were categorized into four main themes. The first theme is demonstrated in Table 1 as “Causes and sources of air pollution of Tehran metropolis”. The most vital sources of air pollution corresponded to the process of policy making, lack of attention to environmental changes, topographic status of Tehran, pollutants due to mobile and stationary sources, and the matter of improper energy management.

Table 1

Causes and sources of air pollution of Tehran metropolis according to the participants’ viewpoints

The second theme is demonstrated in Table 2 as “Challenges and obstacles towards effective performance of air pollution control plans of Tehran metropolis.” The most important challenges of Tehran's air pollution management are focused on nine areas, which we abstracted them into two wider categories including air pollution stewardship challenges and environmental (political, economical, social and technical [PEST]) challenges.

Table 2

Challenges and obstacles towards effective performance of air pollution control plans’ of Tehran metropolis according to the participants’ viewpoints

The third theme is presented in Table 3 as “The most effective controlling solutions for air pollution in the metropolitan areas.” Given that air pollution is one of national planning priorities in metropolitan areas, there are numerous evidences demonstrating effective measures taken by metropolises challenging air pollution.

Table 3

The most effective controlling solutions for air pollution in the world according to the participants’ viewpoints

As presented in Table 4, the forth theme was “The most effective controlling alternatives for air pollution in Tehran metropolis.”

Table 4

The most effective controlling alternatives for air pollution in Tehran metropolis according to the participants’ viewpoints

DISCUSSION

Our findings propose that Tehran's air pollution is mainly related to five major reasons including improper policy making, lack of attention to the pollutant's changes, geographical situation, mobile and stationary sources, as well as non-standard energy production.

Inadequate and illogical attention to the pollutants sources led to some important challenges including those which could be due to not having a unique and organized stewardship (Poor communication between stakeholders, poor evaluation and monitoring system, poor resource generation and infrastructures, poor standards, rules and regulations, poor performance and lack of a reference observatory system) and of course those challenges could be due to the environmental changes (PEST challenges), which are not controllable by the air pollution management authorities.

As all metropolises confront such challenges, their authorities implement different plans in order to manage air pollution. Some of the best and effective controlling solutions are focused on culturalization and infrastructural development, applying economical control levers, utilizing participatory capacities, strategic planning and focusing on public transportation.[22] In Iran, same as other metropolises, several plans have been prepared and some are already implemented, but unfortunately, because of some aforementioned challenges, they failed to control Tehran's air pollution as it was expected. To solve the challenges and improve the quality and effectiveness of controlling air pollution plans, some noticeable controlling alternatives were proposed by the practicing professionals. Among them were underscoring the matter of stewardship in the field of air pollution management, focusing on effective management system, as well as standardization of fuel and energy production and consumption, enhancing public participation capacity, developing appropriate coordination and controlling mechanism, realization of social justice through capacity evaluation in regional scope, standardizing and utilizing new technologies and professional experts, cultural and infrastructural development, systematizing the plan preparation process and legitimizing air pollution control plans.

Same previous studies have been conducted in other metropolises facing similar issues. Our findings about the challenges of the air pollution control plans are in line with a survey on controlling air pollution plans in South Africa.[11] That study suggested that poor standards and regulations to support the plan's implementation, poor cooperation among stakeholders (key authorities, planners, policymakers, citizens etc.), poor resource generation and poor attention to the type and source of pollution are the most important challenges caused the failure of control plans. Likewise, a previous study in Tehran suggested that poor and disorganized stewardship is a key factor leading to the failure of Tehran's air pollution control plan.[23] Furthermore, our finding about controlling alternatives for Tehran's air pollution is consistent with the findings of a survey on the same subject in Tehran.[19] He assumed that developing an appropriate evaluation and monitoring mechanism to enforce different responsible authorities through evaluate the performance of them, realization of social justice and improving the participation capacities are the success factors of plan implementation. The major health hazards of air pollutants[2425] warrants the necessity of considering this issue as a public health priority.

These finding can help Tehran's authorities to look at plan preparation process with a new approach, which would be also practical for every developing large cities, which are confronting such problems. In other words, authorities can positively benefit the viewpoints of the practicing professionals who consider the plan's deficiencies from unlike aspects in diverse levels of initials in advanced studies requirement, plans preparation to plan's implementation. Furthermore, the findings can be useful for other developing metropolises facing same air pollution challenges.

Study limitations

We considered the most important challenges of Tehran's air pollution control plans only in order to offer effective controlling solutions. Further, more studies should be conducted to determine the priority of the offered solutions in accordance with Tehran's facilities and requirements.

CONCLUSIONS

Controlling air pollution of Tehran needs a serious attention from policymakers to make an effectual enforcement through applying a systemic cycle of preparation and revising effective and comprehensive plans, implementing enforcement and evaluating the environmental impact of the plans through involving all stakeholders.