Temporal variations and spatial distributions of gaseous and particulate air pollutants and their health risks during 2015-2019 in China

Wei Zhou; Chun Chen; Lu Lei; Pingqing Fu; Yele Sun

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116031

Temporal variations and spatial distributions of gaseous and particulate air pollutants and their health risks during 2015-2019 in China

Environ Pollut. 2021 Mar 1:272:116031. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116031. Epub 2020 Nov 23.

Authors

Wei Zhou¹, Chun Chen¹, Lu Lei¹, Pingqing Fu², Yele Sun³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China; College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
² Institute of Surface-Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China; College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China; Center for Excellence in Regional Atmospheric Environment, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China. Electronic address: sunyele@mail.iap.ac.cn.

PMID: 33261960
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116031

Abstract

Air quality has been significantly improved in China in recent years; however, our knowledge of the long-term changes in health risks from exposure to air pollutants remain less understood. Here we investigated the temporal variations and spatial distributions of six criteria pollutants (SO₂, NO₂, O₃, CO, PM_2.5 and PM₁₀) in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Pearl River Delta (PRD) during 2015-2019. SO₂ showed 36-60% reductions in three regions, comparatively, NO₂ decreased by 3-17% in BTH and YRD and had a 5% increase in PRD. PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ showed the largest reductions in BTH (30-33%) and the lowest in PRD (7-13%), while O₃ increased by 9% during 2015-2019 particularly in BTH and YRD. Assuming that only air pollutants above given thresholds exert excess risk (ER_total) of mortality, we found that the different variations of pollutants have caused ER_total in BTH decreasing significantly from 4.8% in 2015 to 2.0% in 2019, while from 1.9% to 1.0% in YRD, and a small change in PRD. These results indicate substantially decreased health risks of mortality from exposure to air pollutants as a response to improved air quality. Overall, PM_2.5 dominated ER_total accounting for 42-53% in BTH and 58-64% in YRD with steadily increased contributions, yet ER_total presented strong seasonal dependence on air pollutants with largely increased contribution of O₃ in summer. The ER_total caused by SO₂ was decreased substantially and became negligible except in winter in BTH, while NO₂ only played a role in winter. We also found that ER_PM2.5 was compositional dependent with organics being the major contributor at low ER_PM2.5 while nitrate was more important at high ER_PM2.5. Our results highlight that evaluation of public health risks of air pollution needs to consider chemical differences of PM in different regions in addition to dominant air pollutants in different seasons.

Keywords: Compositional dependent; Criteria pollutants; Health risks; Long-term changes.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants* / analysis
Air Pollution* / analysis
Beijing
China
Environmental Monitoring
Gases
Particulate Matter / analysis
Seasons

Substances

Air Pollutants
Gases
Particulate Matter