Ammonia (NH3) is an important precursor of secondary inorganic aerosols and greatly impacts nitrogen deposition and acid rain. Previous studies have mainly focused on the agricultural NH3 emissions, while recent research has noted that industrial sources could be significant in China. However, detailed estimates of NH3 emitted from industrial sectors in China are lacking. Here, we established an unprecedented high-spatial-resolution data set of China’s industrial NH3 emissions using up-to-date measurements of NH3 and point source-level information covering eight major industries and 27 subdivided process categories. We found that China emitted 798 (90% confidence interval: 668–933) gigagrams of industrial NH3 into the atmosphere in 2019, equivalent to 44 ± 20% of the industrial emissions worldwide; this flux is 3-fold larger than that in 1998 and has fluctuated since 2014. Furthermore, although fertilizer production is responsible for approximately half of the emissions in China, the emissions from cement production and coal-fired power plants increased dramatically from near zero to 164 and 41 gigagrams, respectively, in the past two decades, primarily due to the NH3 escape caused by the large-scale application of the denitration process. Our results reveal that, unlike other major air pollutants, China’s industrial NH3 emission control is still in a critical period, and stricter NH3 emission standards and innovation in pollution control technologies are highly desirable.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury calls for Hg control actions to protect the environment and human beings from the adverse impacts of Hg pollution. It aims at the entire life cycle of Hg. Existing studies on the Hg cycle in the global environmental–economic system have characterized the emission-to-impact pathway of Hg pollution. That is, Hg emissions/releases from the economic system can have adverse impacts on human health and ecosystems. However, current modeling of the Hg cycle is not fully looped. It ignores the feedback of Hg-related environmental impacts (including human health impacts and ecosystem impacts) to the economic system. This would impede the development of more comprehensive Hg control actions. By synthesizing recent information on Hg cycle modeling, this critical review found that Hg-related environmental impacts would have feedbacks to the economic system via the labor force and biodiversity loss. However, the interactions between Hg-related activities in the environmental and economic systems are not completely clear. The cascading effects of Hg-related environmental impacts to the economic system throughout global supply chains have not been revealed. Here, we emphasize the knowledge gaps and propose possible approaches for looping the Hg cycle in global environmental–economic system modeling. This progress is crucial for formulating more dynamic and flexible Hg control measures. It provides new perspectives for the implementation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
Mercury (Hg) is a neurotoxic pollutant ubiquitously present in the environment (Obrist et al., 2021). Atmospheric Hg cycling is a crucial component of biogeochemical Hg cycling, owing to the extreme volatility of Hg (Sommar et al., 2020). Atmospheric Hg consists of a gaseous, elemental, and dominant type (Hg 0 ; approximately 95%), and a gaseous or particulate divalent type (Hg II ) (Lindberg & Stratton, 1998). Owing to its low chemical reactivity and water solubility, Hg 0 has a long lifespan in the troposphere (0.8-1.3 a) (Saiz-Lopez et al., 2018). It can be transported globally through atmospheric circulation before being adsorbed by vegetation and soils through dry deposition (Gustin et al., 2008;Wright et al., 2016) or transformed into Hg II , which is easily removed by wet deposition (Lyman et al., 2020). Deposited Hg potentially poses risks to wildlife and humans owing to its methylation and bioaccumulation characteristics (Roman et al., 2011;Zhang et al., 2010Zhang et al., , 2021.Seasonality of atmospheric Hg concentrations has been observed at multiple ground-based monitoring sites worldwide. In particular, the observed seasonality is stronger in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, which includes forest, coastal, and urban sites (
Soil stores a large amount of mercury (Hg) that has adverse effects on human health and ecosystem safety. Significant uncertainties still exist in revealing environmental drivers of soil Hg accumulation and predicting global Hg distribution owing to the lack of field data from global standardized analyses. Here, we conducted a global standardized field survey and explored a holistic understanding of the multidimensional environmental drivers of Hg accumulation in global surface soils. Hg content in surface soils from our survey ranges from 3.8 to 618.2 μg kg–1 with an average of 74.0 μg kg–1 across the globe. Atmospheric Hg deposition, particularly vegetation-induced elemental Hg0 deposition, is the major source of surface soil Hg. Soil organic carbon serves as the major substrate for sequestering Hg in surface soils and is significantly influenced by agricultural management, litterfall, and elevation. For human activities, changing land-use could be a more important contributor than direct anthropogenic emissions. Our prediction of a new global Hg distribution highlights the hot spots (high Hg content) in East Asia, the Northern Hemispheric temperate/boreal regions, and tropical areas, while the cold spots (low Hg content) are in arid regions. The holistic understanding of multidimensional environmental drivers helps to predict the Hg distribution in global surface soils under a changing global environment.
Mercury (Hg) is a potent neurotoxin that poses health risks to the global population. Anthropogenic Hg emissions to the atmosphere are projected to decrease in the future due to enhanced policy efforts such as the Minamata Convention, a legally-binding international treaty entered into force in 2017. To project the health benefits of emission reduction requires considering both primary sources and recycling of previously deposited Hg from the land and ocean. Here we report the development of a comprehensive climate-atmosphere-land-ocean-ecosystem and exposure-risk model framework for Hg and its application to project the health effects of future atmospheric emissions. We find the projected Hg health risk changes nonlinearly with emission changes, and the most optimistic scenario (maximum feasible reduction, MFR) leads to Hg levels in the freshwater and marine biota half of the present-day levels. Our results show that the accumulated health effects associated with Hg exposure during 2010–2050 are $19 (range: 10–27) trillion (2020 USD) realized to 2050 (3% discount rate) for the current policy scenario. The MFR scenario is projected to have a health benefit of $2.4 trillion, while a business-as-usual scenario results in an additional $4.9 trillion health loss. Our results suggest a substantial increase in global human health cost if emission reduction actions are delayed. This comprehensive modeling approach provides a much-needed tool to help parties to evaluate the effectiveness of Hg emission controls as required by the Minamata Convention.
Trans-provincial thermal power transmission has become an important measure for optimizing power allocation and alleviating the mismatch between regional power production and consumption in China, however, leading to inter-regional redistribution of air pollution. Here, we investigated the impacts of thermal power transmission on air-quality recovery and related health outcomes in China. The results showed that the redistribution of air pollutant emissions contributed to air-quality improvements and health benefits in the eastern regions but to the opposite side in the western regions. On a national scale, trans-provincial thermal power transmission contributed to a change in air quality from slightly polluted to good conditions for a period of 9 days under the standard of 75 μg m–3, accounting for 1.8% of the total number of polluted days in 4 months of 2017 and promoting air-quality recovery in China. Furthermore, the recovery totally reduced the number of premature deaths (exposed to fine particulate matter, PM2.5) by 2392 persons (95% confidence interval: 1495–3124) in 2017. Owing to thermal power retrofits and stable power transmission structure, transmission network expansion during the last decade has not brought significant changes in its impacts on air pollution. However, the environmental inequity caused by thermal power transmission stimulates further attention on coordinating regional interests in air pollution control through various production-side and consumption-side measures.
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