Designation of acid rain and SO 2 control zones and control policies in China

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374

136

Primary PM 2.5 emissions contributed significantly to poor air quality in China. We present an interdisciplinary study to measure the magnitudes of socioeconomic factors in driving primary PM 2.5 emission changes in China between 1997-2010, by using a regional emission inventory as input into an environmentally extended input-output framework and applying structural decomposition analysis. Our results show that China's significant efficiency gains fully offset emissions growth triggered by economic growth and other drivers. Capital formation is the largest final demand category in contributing annual PM 2.5 emissions, but the associated emission level is steadily declining. Exports is the only final demand category that drives emission growth between 1997-2010. The production of exports led to emissions of 638 thousand tonnes of PM 2.5 , half of the EU27 annual total, and six times that of Germany. Embodied emissions in Chinese exports are largely driven by consumption in OECD countries.

Section: Annual Primary Pm 25 Contributions By Fuel Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The socioeconomic drivers of China’s primary PM _2.5 emissions

Guan

Zhang

et al. 2014

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374

136

“…The effect of air pollutant emissions on soil acidification is estimated by comparing the simulated deposition with critical load (CL), which has been used as the basis of emission control and acid rain mitigation in Europe (UBA 2004) as well as China (Hao et al 2000, Zhao et al 2011a. The maximum critical loads of S deposition, i.e.…”

Section: Critical Load For Soil Acidificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental effects of the recent emission changes in China: implications for particulate matter pollution and soil acidification

Zhao

Dong

Wang

et al. 2013

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118

Driven by a rapid increase of energy consumption and emerging pollution control policies, air pollutant emissions have changed dramatically in China during 2005China during -2010. This study developed a multi-pollutant emission inventory, and used the community multi-scale air quality (CMAQ) modeling system to evaluate the impact of the emission changes on particulate matter pollution and soil acidification. During 2005-2010, the emissions of SO 2 , PM 10 and PM 2.5 decreased by 14.9%, 15.1% and 11.7%, respectively. In contrast, the emissions of NO X , NMVOC and NH 3 increased by 33.8%, 21.0% and 10.4%, respectively. The emission trends differed notably in different regions. Driven by emission changes, PM 2.5 concentrations decreased by 2-17 µg m −3 in most of the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, while increasing by 4.5-16 µg m −3 in most of the Sichuan Basin and Eastern Hubei. The changes of PM 2.5 emissions led to the decline of primary PM 2.5 concentrations in most of Eastern China. As an effect solely of emission changes, nitrate concentrations increased across most of China; sulfate concentrations decreased in most of Eastern China, with the largest reduction in the North China Plain, while they increased in the Sichuan Basin and parts of the Pearl River Delta and Eastern Hubei. The concentrations of secondary inorganic aerosols (SIA) and the extinction coefficient increased in most of China, especially in the Sichuan Basin and Eastern Hubei, implying that the NO X and NH 3 emissions should be reduced simultaneously in China. Combining the acidification effects of S and N, the exceedance of critical loads decreased across the country, but increased in the Sichuan Basin, the Pearl River Delta and Eastern Hubei, where the soil acidification was the most serious. Different control policies need to be implemented in different regions.

“…An immense amount of coal is used in China to maintain its rapid economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization, taking 50.8% of the total global coal consumption in 2014 [1]. Consequently, sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) pollution has undermined the public's expectations for clean air quality in China for many years [2][3][4], and endangered the human health and ecosystem [5][6][7][8]. Looking back over the past decade, the Chinese government has made great efforts to reduce SO 2 emissions by legislatively mandating the installation of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) facilities at coal-fired power plants [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite measurements oversee China’s sulfur dioxide emission reductions from coal-fired power plants

Wang

Zhang

Martin

et al. 2015

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100

To evaluate the real reductions in sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions from coal-fired power plants in China, Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) remote sensing SO 2 columns were used to inversely model the SO 2 emission burdens surrounding 26 isolated power plants before and after the effective operation of their flue gas desulfurization (FGD) facilities. An improved two-dimensional Gaussian fitting method was developed to estimate SO 2 burdens under complex background conditions, by using the accurate local background columns and the customized fitting domains for each target source. The OMI-derived SO 2 burdens before effective FGD operation were correlated well with the bottom-up emission estimates (R=0.92), showing the reliability of the OMI-derived SO 2 burdens as a linear indicator of the associated source strength. OMI observations indicated that the average lag time period between installation and effective operation of FGD facilities at these 26 power plants was around 2 years, and no FGD facilities have actually operated before the year 2008. The OMI estimated average SO 2 removal equivalence (56.0%) was substantially lower than the official report (74.6%) for these 26 power plants. Therefore, it has been concluded that the real reductions of SO 2 emissions in China associated with the FGD facilities at coal-fired power plants were considerably diminished in the context of the current weak supervision measures.