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Impact of China’s Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan on PM2.5 chemical composition over eastern China

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Abstract

China promulgated the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (the Action Plan) in 2013 and developed stringent control measures to mitigate fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution. Here, we investigated the PM2.5 chemical composition changes over eastern China associated with the Action Plan during 2013–2017 using satellite-based PM2.5 chemical composition data derived using CMAQ simulations and satellite inputs. The PM2.5 concentrations decreased considerably during this time as a result of the reductions in all chemical species in PM2.5. The population-weighted mean concentrations over eastern China decreased from 11.1 to 6.7 μg m-3 for \({\rm{SO}}_4^{2-}\), 13.8–13.1 μg m-3 for \({\rm{NO}}_3^-\), 7.4–5.8 μg m-3 for \({\rm{NH}}_4^+\), 9.9–8.4 μg m-3 for OM, 4.6–3.8 μg m-3 for BC and 12.9–9.6 μg m-3 for other species in PM2.5. \({\rm{SO}}_4^{2-}\) had the largest reduction of 40%, while \({\rm{NO}}_3^-\) had the lowest reduction of 5%, resulting in a greater fraction of \({\rm{NO}}_3^-\) and a smaller fraction of \({\rm{SO}}_4^{2-}\) in PM2.5. Among the three key regions, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei had the largest reduction in PM2.5 and its chemical compositions. The decrease in SO4 2 concentrations was in line with the reduction of SO2 emissions, and the major driver of the SO2 emission reductions was the industrial sector. The decrease in \({\rm{NO}}_3^-\) concentrations was limited because the decrease in SO2 emissions and the stable NH3 emissions facilitated the formation of \({\rm{NO}}_3^-\) from HNO3, which partially offset the reduction in NOx emissions driven by the power sector. To mitigate PM2.5 pollution more effectively, future efforts are needed to reduce NH3 emissions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the SPARTAN Project for its effort in establishing and maintaining the Beijing site. The SPARTAN network was initiated with funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41571130032 & 41571130035) and the National Key R & D Program (Grant No. 2016YFC0201506). The work of G. GENG and Y. LIU was supported by the MAIA science team at the JPL, California Institute of Technology (Grant No. 1588347).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30322, USA

    Guannan Geng, Qingyang Xiao & Yang Liu

  2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Yixuan Zheng, Dan Tong, Yuxuan Zhang & Qiang Zhang

  3. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Dan Tong & Kebin He

  4. Key Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, CMA, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xiaoye Zhang

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  1. Guannan Geng
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  2. Qingyang Xiao
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  3. Yixuan Zheng
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  4. Dan Tong
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  5. Yuxuan Zhang
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Correspondence to Kebin He or Yang Liu.

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Geng, G., Xiao, Q., Zheng, Y. et al. Impact of China’s Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan on PM2.5 chemical composition over eastern China. Sci. China Earth Sci. 62, 1872–1884 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-018-9353-x

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