Influence of meteorological and ambient air quality factors on Artemisia pollen counts in Urumqi, Northwest China

Kadeliya Jiapaer; Ümüt Halik; Maierdang Keyimu; Imin Bilal; Lei Shi; Reyila Mumin

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25124

Influence of meteorological and ambient air quality factors on Artemisia pollen counts in Urumqi, Northwest China

Heliyon. 2024 Jan 26;10(3):e25124. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25124. eCollection 2024 Feb 15.

Authors

Kadeliya Jiapaer^{1

2}, Ümüt Halik¹, Maierdang Keyimu³, Imin Bilal⁴, Lei Shi¹, Reyila Mumin⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Ecology and Environment, MOE Key Laboratory of Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China.
² Sino-Danish College of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China.
³ Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Science, Urumqi 830011, China.
⁴ School of Resources and Environment, Yili Normal University, Yining 835000, China.
⁵ School of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Institute of Microbiology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.

Abstract

The exposure of Artemisia pollen in the air to humans causes adverse allergenic effects on the respiratory system. However, the relationship between Artemisia pollen counts and meteorological and air quality factors in the arid and semiarid cities of northwest China has not attracted significant attention. Here, we observed the seasonal pollen counts of Artemisia, as well as the main meteorological variables (temperature/T, relative humidity/RH, and wind speed/WS, and ambient air quality factors (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and CO₂). This was conducted from May to September 2021 at three sampling sites in Urumqi, Xinjiang. The results showed that Artemisia pollen counts gradually increased from May (121 grains/1000 mm²) to August (563 grains/1000 mm²) and decreased till the end of the sampling period in September (247 grains/1000 mm²). Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the variation in Artemisia pollen counts and PM_2.5 (R = 0.545, P < 0.01), the average temperature (R = 0.424, P < 0.05), and PM₁₀ (R = 0.466, P < 0.05). Oppositely, a significant negative correlation was observed between the RH (R = 0.503, P < 0.01) and WS (R = 0.653, P < 0.01). Variation partitioning analysis showed that meteorological factors contributed the highest (44 %) to the variation in pollen counts. The study results provide basic information for future case studies on allergenic plant pollen in Urumqi and serve as a reference for the development of sustainable healthy cities in arid regions.

Keywords: Air pollen concentration; Air quality factors; Arid oasis city; Artemisia sp.; Urumqi.