Environmental Degradation in China

Smil, Vaclav

doi:10.2307/2643633

Cited by 26 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…For Xinjiang Province in Northwest China, the PM 2.5 levels were generally 50−60 μg/m 3 , which were mainly come from the dust impact of Taklimakan Desert and relatively stable over decades. Our findings suggest that air pollution is not a new environmental issue that occurs in the recent 2−3 decades but a problem existing in a longer time before 1980, 29,30 especially in the areas mentioned above. To further confirm these findings, we reviewed the limited papers which studied the air pollution in China from1960s-1980s.…”

Section: Environmental Science and Technologymentioning

confidence: 63%

“…From 1964 to 1980, the total energy consumption increased from ∼150 MtCE to ∼600 MtCE. Since coal consumption accounted for majority of the total energy consumption, 41 the low-quality coal and low efficiency of coal combustion, 30 together with the increasing energy consumption had caused the dramatic degradation in PM 2.5 concentrations during this period. From 1980 to 2003, the energy consumption still increased rapidly from ∼600 MtCE to ∼1670 MtCE.…”

Section: Environmental Science and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visibility-Based PM_2.5 Concentrations in China: 1957–1964 and 1973–2014

Liu

2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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China established ground PM monitoring network in late 2012 and hence the long-term and large-scale PM data were lacking before 2013. In this work, we developed a national-scale spatiotemporal linear mixed effects model to estimate the long-term PM concentrations in China from 1957 to 1964 and from 1973 to 2014 using ground visibility monitoring data as the primary predictor. The overall model-fitting and cross-validation R is 0.72 and 0.71, suggesting that the model is not overfitted. Validation beyond the model year (2014) indicated that the model could accurately estimate historical PM concentrations at the monthly (R = 0.71) level. The historical PM estimates suggest that air pollution is not a new environmental issue that occurs in the recent decades but a problem existing in a longer time before 1980. The PM concentrations have reached 60-80 μg/m in the north part of North China Plain during 1950s-1960s and increased to generally higher than 90 μg/m during 1970s. The results also show that the entire China experienced an overall increasing trend (0.19 μg/m/yr, P < 0.001) in PM concentrations from 1957 to 2014 with fluctuations among different periods. This paper demonstrated visibility data allow us to understand the spatiotemporal characteristics of PM pollution in China in a long-term.

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Section: Environmental Science and Technologymentioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Environmental Science and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Visibility-Based PM_2.5 Concentrations in China: 1957–1964 and 1973–2014

Liu

2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…Domestically, as we have seen, thirty years of reforms saw huge improvements in China's economic development and living standards. However, China's natural resources have been the subject of widespread exploitation with significant implications for the pollution of the natural environment as documented by scholars such as Economy ( 2004Economy ( , 2005, Hayes ( 2007 ), Magee ( 2006 ) and Smil ( 1980Smil ( , 1998Smil ( , 2004. China now emits more CO2 than the United States and Canada put together and its emissions are up by 7…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%