Study atmospheric pollution to develop a process for calculating the isolation safe distance for livestock activities: Applied in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is the largest city in Vietnam, with the highest economic growth rate and the most populous density in the country. By the year 2019, HCMC currently has 8.99 million people with 24 districts. Ho Chi Minh city has robust industrial and service development; therefore, this city focuses on developing large-scale livestock facilities with a large number of pigs and limiting small livestock facilities. According to statistic data, HCMC has a total of 275,000 pigs in 2019. These livestock facilities are mainly built in Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, Binh Chanh, Can Gio, and Nha Be districts. These livestock facilities in HCMC have inefficient waste treatment systems located interleaved with residential areas. So that, environmental issues are also a big challenge for the city's government because of the great influence of odor on the surrounding environment causing by the wind direction. The main purposes of this study are (i) calculation of odor emissions from livestock facilities, (ii) simulation of the odor from livestock facilities, and (iii) development of the safe distance of odor for livestock facilities in HCMC. The study results show that 230m and 650m is the minimum distance from the livestock facility with capacity from over 500 to 1,000 pigs and over 1,000 pigs to the residential area, respectively. The procedure for calculating the odor isolation distance developing in this study could apply for other livestock facilities in other provinces, cities.