Emission quantification associated with firewood usage: A case study of Mangondi village in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Abstract

For a long time, fuelwood has been used as an affordable source of energy, available for cooking, lighting, and heating. Fuelwood combusted using informal stoves which are not properly designed are characterized by having low combustion properties, hence, this results in high air pollutant emissions since the fuelwood is not fully combusted. A large quantity of criteria pollutants and greenhouse gas (GHG) are present in the atmosphere causing global warming and climate change due to domestic wood combustion (DWC). The aim of this study is to quantify the use of firewood as a source of energy in Mangondi village, a rural village in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. This study employed structured questionnaires and face-to-face interview to gather required information, to identify preferred tree species used as firewood in Mangondi village. The questionnaires were administered to forty households that were selected randomly in the village. Additionally, a crane scale was used to quantify the firewood mass burnt daily by the 40 households during the winter and summer seasons of 2021. The study used the data generated as a baseline for estimating the GHG, and criteria pollutants’ emissions released from burning fuelwood in winter and summer by the participating households in Mangondi village. The results obtained from the questionnaires and interviews, revealed that the preferred tree species used as firewood in the households were Dichrostachys cinereal, Euclea divinorum Hiern and Combretum imberbe. Fuelwood was the main source of energy used by the households of Mangondi village for preparing meals and space heating. The results from this study illustrate that several factors, such as, socio-economic aspects, accessibility and availability were reasons for the utilization of fuelwood as a preferred choice of energy for households in Mangondi village. The average wood mass burnt in 2021, in the morning sessions (2-5 hours) was 4.04 kg/day and 2.94 kg/day in the evening (1-1h30) and amounted to an average of 2545.27 kg per household, per year. More fuelwood was used in winter than summer mostly due to space-heating needs. The emission rate for GHG, CO2 (1771.12 g/day) and CH4 (5.9 g/day) was higher in winter than in summer (1014.86 g/day and 3.38 g/day) respectively. Results for the criteria pollutants estimated, show that PM2.5, PM10, CO, SO2 and NOx was 169.24 g/day; 60.23 g/day; 68.09 g/day; 0.79 g/day; 5.12 g/day in winter and 1014.86 g/day; 96.98 g/day; 3.38 g/day; 34.51 g/day; 39.02 g/day;0.45 g/day; 2.93 g/day in summer. This study shows that households in rural areas still choose to use fuelwood to meet their daily energy needs because it is easily accessible and cheap. This study illustrated that burning fuelwood leads to GHG and criteria pollutant being emitted, therefore, intensive awareness and pollution control programs are suggested to improve indoor air quality and health condition of the rural population.