Quantifying ecological and health risks of ground-level O3 across China during the implementation of the "Three-year Action Plan for Cleaner Air"

Hui Zhao; Lin Wang; Zhen Zhang; Qi Qi; Hongliang Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153011

Quantifying ecological and health risks of ground-level O₃ across China during the implementation of the "Three-year Action Plan for Cleaner Air"

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Apr 15:817:153011. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153011. Epub 2022 Jan 11.

Authors

Hui Zhao¹, Lin Wang², Zhen Zhang³, Qi Qi⁴, Hongliang Zhang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control (AEMPC), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
² Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
³ Shaanxi Meteorological Service Center of Agricultural Remote Sensing and Economic Crops, Xi'an 710014, China.
⁴ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
⁵ Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China; Institute of Eco-Chongming (IEC), Shanghai 200062, China. Electronic address: zhanghl@fudan.edu.cn.

PMID: 35026272
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153011

Abstract

After China implemented the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (APPCAP), PM_2.5 concentrations decreased but were still higher than national standards in major areas and ozone (O₃) concentration increased unintentionally. To further decrease PM_2.5 concentrations and reduce days with severe air pollution, the government promulgated the "Three-year (2018-2020) Action Plan for Cleaner Air" (the Three-year Action Plan) in 2018. During the three-year Action Plan, a few studies reported a continuous decline in PM_2.5, but it is unclear whether O₃ and its effects also increase with the decrease of PM_2.5 like during APPCAP. In this study, for the first time, we systematically assessed changes in ground-level O₃ concentrations and related ecological and health risks during the period of the Three-year Action Plan using nationwide O₃ measurements. The national MDA8, Exceedance, and SOMO35 indicators were reduced by 3.8%, 28.5%, and 12.6%, respectively, ecological risk indicators of M12, M7, SUM06, AOT40, and W126 were reduced by 5.4%, 5.6%, 19.5%, 15.4%, and 18.6%, respectively, from 2018 to 2020. Spatially, the greatest reduction in all the indicators except MDA8 occurred in Pearl River Delta, followed by Fen Wei Plains, while Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu-Chongqing, and Yangtze River Delta presented relatively small reductions. Between 2018 and 2020, the production losses caused by O₃ for wheat and rice decreased by 21.4% and 17.6%, respectively. Long-term exposure to O₃ across China over 2020 was estimated to cause about 160,795 (95% CI: 81,515-312,983) for all-cause mortality, 107,128 (95% CI: 36,703-173,823) for cardiovascular mortality, and 34,444 (95% CI: 0-72,609) for respiratory mortality, indicating decreases of 9.93%, 9.86%, and 9.78%, respectively, compared to the year 2018. Taken together, our results provided the first direct evidence for China's efforts to control O₃ pollution in recent years.

Keywords: Ground-level O(3); O(3) indicators; Risk assessment; Spatiotemporal change.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / analysis
Air Pollution* / prevention & control
China
Environmental Monitoring
Ozone* / analysis
Particulate Matter / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter
Ozone