Driving Forces of Meteorology and Emission Changes on Surface Ozone in the Huaihe River Basin, China

Xiaoyong Liu; Hui Gao; Xiangmin Zhang; Yidan Zhang; Junhui Yan; Jiqiang Niu; Feiyan Chen

doi:10.1007/s11270-023-06345-1

Driving Forces of Meteorology and Emission Changes on Surface Ozone in the Huaihe River Basin, China

Water Air Soil Pollut. 2023;234(6):355. doi: 10.1007/s11270-023-06345-1. Epub 2023 May 27.

Authors

Xiaoyong Liu^{1

2}, Hui Gao^{1

2}, Xiangmin Zhang^{1

2}, Yidan Zhang¹, Junhui Yan^{1

2}, Jiqiang Niu^{1

2}, Feiyan Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Geographic Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, 464000 China.
² Henan Key Laboratory for Synergistic Prevention of Water and Soil Environmental Pollution, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, 464000 China.

Abstract

Surface ozone (O₃) pollution in China has become a serious environmental problem in recent years. In the present study, we targeted the HRB, a large region located in China's north-south border zone, to assess the driving forces of meteorology and emission changes on surface ozone. A Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter method was performed on the maximum daily average 8-h (MDA8) concentrations of ozone in the HRB during 2015-2020 to decompose the original time series. The findings demonstrated that the short-term (O_3ST), seasonal (O_3SN), and long-term components (O_3LT) of MDA8 O₃ variations accounted for 34.2%, 56.1%, and 2.9% of the total variance, respectively. O_3SN has the greatest influence on the daily variation in MDA8 O₃, followed by O_3ST. In coastal cities, the influence of O_3ST was enhanced. The influence of O_3SN was stronger in the northwestern HRB. Air temperature is the prevailing variable that influences the photochemical formation of ozone. A clear phase lag (7-34 days) of the baseline component between MDA8 O₃ and the atmospheric temperature was found in the HRB. Using multiple linear regression, the effect of temperature on ozone was removed. We estimated that the increase in ozone concentration in the HRB was mainly caused by the emission changes (79.4%), and the meteorological conditions made a small contribution (20.6%). This study suggests that reductions in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) will play an important role in further ozone pollution reduction in the HRB.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11270-023-06345-1.

Keywords: Emission changes; Huaihe River Basin; KZ filter; Meteorology; Surface ozone.

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