The COVID-19 outbreak greatly limited
human activities and reduced
primary emissions particularly from urban on-road vehicles but coincided
with Beijing experiencing “pandemic haze,” raising the
public concerns about the effectiveness of imposed traffic policies
to improve the air quality. This paper explores the relationship between
local vehicle emissions and the winter haze in Beijing before and
during the COVID-19 lockdown based on an integrated analysis framework,
which combines a real-time on-road emission inventory, in situ air
quality observations, and a localized numerical modeling system. We
found that traffic emissions decreased substantially during the COVID-19
pandemic, but its imbalanced emission abatement of NO
x
(76%, 125.3 Mg/day) and volatile organic compounds
(VOCs, 53%, 52.9 Mg/day) led to a significant rise of atmospheric
oxidants in urban areas, resulting in a modest increase in secondary
aerosols due to inadequate precursors, which still offset reduced
primary emissions. Moreover, the enhanced oxidizing capacity in the
surrounding regions greatly increased the secondary particles with
relatively abundant precursors, which was transported into Beijing
and mainly responsible for the aggravated haze pollution. We recommend
that mitigation policies should focus on accelerating VOC emission
reduction and synchronously controlling regional sources to release
the benefits of local traffic emission control.
Abstract. With the fast development of seaborne trade and relatively more efforts on
reducing emissions from other sources in China, shipping emissions contribute
more and more significantly to air pollution. In this study, based on a
shipping emission inventory with high spatial and temporal resolution within
200 nautical miles (Nm) to the Chinese coastline, the Community Multiscale
Air Quality (CMAQ) model was applied to quantify the impacts of the shipping
sector on the annual and seasonal concentrations of PM2.5 for the base
year 2015 in China. Emissions within 12 Nm accounted for
51.2 %–56.5 % of the total shipping emissions, and the distinct
seasonal variations in spatial distribution were observed. The modeling
results showed that shipping emissions increased the annual averaged
PM2.5 concentrations in eastern China up to
5.2 µg m−3, and the impacts in YRD
(Yangtze River Delta) and PRD (Pearl River Delta) were much greater than
those in BTH (Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei). Shipping emissions influenced the air
quality in not only coastal areas but also the inland areas hundreds of
kilometers (up to 960 km) away from the sea. The impacts on the PM2.5
showed obvious seasonal variations, and patterns in the north and south of
the Yangtze River were also quite different. In addition, since the onshore
wind can carry ship pollutants to inland areas, the daily contributions of
shipping emissions in onshore flow days were about 1.8–2.7 times higher than
those in the rest of the days. A source-oriented CMAQ was used to estimate the
contributions of shipping emissions from maritime areas within 0–12, 12–50,
50–100 and 100–200 Nm to PM2.5 concentrations. The results
indicated that shipping emissions within 12 Nm were the dominant
contributor,
with contributions 30 %–90 % of the total impacts induced by
emissions within 200 Nm, while a relatively high contribution
(40 %–60 %) of shipping emissions within 20–100 Nm was
observed in the north of the YRD region and south of Lianyungang, due to the
major water traffic lanes far from land. The results presented in this work
implied that shipping emissions had significant influence on air quality in
China, and to reduce its pollution, the current Domestic Emission Control
Area (DECA) should be expanded to at least 100 Nm from the coastline.
Intermediate-volatility organic compounds (IVOCs) have
been found
as important sources for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation.
IVOC emissions from nonroad construction machineries (NRCMs), including
two road rollers and three motor graders, were characterized under
three operation modes using an improved portable emission measurement
system. The fuel-based IVOC emission factors (EFs) of NRCMs varied
from 245.85 to 1802.19 mg/kg·fuel, which were comparable at magnitudes
to the reported results of an ocean-going ship and on-road diesel
vehicles without filters. The discrepancy of IVOC EFs is significant
within different operation modes. IVOC EFs under the idling mode were
1.24–3.28 times higher than those under moving/working modes.
Unspeciated b-alkanes and cyclic compounds, which
were the unresolved components in IVOCs at the molecular level, accounted
for approximately 91% of total IVOCs from NRCMs. The SOA production
potential analysis shows that IVOCs dominated SOA formation of NRCMs.
Our results demonstrate that IVOC emissions from NRCMs are non-negligible.
Thus, an accurate estimation of their IVOC emissions would benefit
the understanding of SOA formation in the urban atmosphere.
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