Long-term historical trends in air pollutant emissions in Asia: Regional Emission inventory in ASia (REAS) version 3.1

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> A long-term historical emission inventory of air and climate pollutants in East, Southeast, and South Asia from 1950–2015 was developed as the Regional Emission inventory in ASia version 3.1 (REASv3.1). REASv3.1 provides details of emissions from major anthropogenic sources for each country and its sub-regions and also provides monthly gridded data with 0.25° × 0.25° resolution. The average total emissions in Asia during 1950–1955 and from 2010–2015 (growth rates in these 60 years) are as follows: SO<sub>2</sub>: 3.15 Tg, 42.4 Tg (13.5); NO<sub>x</sub>: 1.83 Tg, 47.6 Tg (26.0); CO: 62.2 Tg, 319 Tg (5.13); non-methane volatile organic compounds: 9.14 Tg, 61.8 Tg (6.77); NH<sub>3</sub>: 7.99 Tg, 31.3 Tg (3.92); CO<sub>2</sub>: 1.12 Pg, 18.3 Pg (16.3); PM<sub>10</sub>: 5.76 Tg, 28.4 Tg (4.92); PM<sub>2.5</sub>: 4.52 Tg, 20.3 Tg (4.50); black carbon: 0.751 Tg, 3.38 Tg (4.51); and organic carbon: 2.62 Tg, 6.92 Tg (2.64). Clearly, all the air pollutant emissions in Asia increased significantly during these six decades, but situations were different among countries and regions. Due to China's rapid economic growth in recent years, its relative contribution to emissions in Asia has been the largest. However, most pollutant species reached their peaks by 2015 and the growth rates of other species was found to be reduced or almost zero. On the other hand, air pollutant emissions from India showed an almost continuous increasing trend. As a result, the relative ratio of emissions of India to that of Asia have increased recently. The trend observed in Japan was different from the rest of Asia. In Japan, emissions increased rapidly during 1950s–1970s, which reflected the economic situation of the period; however, most emissions decreased from their peak values, which were approximately 40 years ago, due to the introduction of regulations and laws for air pollution. Similar features were found in the Republic of Korea and Taiwan. In the case of other Asian countries, air pollutant emissions generally showed an increase along with economic growth and motorization. Trends and spatial distribution of air pollutants in Asia are becoming complicated. Datasets of REASv3.1, including table of emissions by countries and sub-regions for major sectors and fuel types, and monthly gridded data with 0.25° × 0.25° resolution for major source categories are available through the following URL: <a href=" http://www.nies.go.jp/REAS/"target="_blank">http://www.nies.go.jp/REAS/</a>.</p>

Changes in black carbon and PM_2.5 in Tokyo in 2003–2017

“…5). 45) The change in estimated EF BC in Kanto agrees well with the change in observed M BC in Tokyo. Although the EF BC from transport in Kanto (including diesel vehicles) decreased greatly during 2003-2015, the EF BC from industry slightly increased after 2011, which slowed the rate of decrease in total BC emissions after 2011.…”

“…Temporal variations of total BC emissions (dots) and BC emissions from different sectors in (a) Japan and (b) Kanto during 2003-2015. Data from Kurokawa et al (2018) 45). …”

Rapid reduction in black carbon emissions from China: evidence from 2009–2019 observations on Fukue Island, Japan

“…The boundary concentrations were derived from the climatological means of the global chemical transport CHemical Atmospheric general circulation model for the Study of atmospheric Environment and Radiative forcing (CHASER;Sudo et al, 2002). The fixed anthropogenic emissions were taken from the monthly data of the Regional Emission inventory in ASia (REAS, version 2.1) with a 0.25 (Kurokawa et al, 2013) for 2008 (hereafter referred to as REAS2.1, 2008). We adopted the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED; version 3.1) for the monthly emissions from biomass burning.…”

Development of the CREATE Inventory in Support of Integrated Climate and Air Quality Modeling for Asia

“…To better understand differences among anthropogenic emission estimates, we reviewed total emissions estimate differences for Asia, calculated for the same base year as this study. To do this, we compared the CREATE inventory outcomes with those produced by the REAS v3.1 (Regional Emissions Inventory in ASia v3.1) [44], MICS (the Model Inter-Comparison Study for Asia) [45], ECLIPSE v5a [46], and EDGAR v4.3.2 [47] inventories ( Figure 18). We found that the all-Asia CO, SO 2 , and NH 3 emissions estimates from CREATE showed a range similar to those of the other inventories, although NO x and VOC estimates averaged 26% and 21% lower, respectively, and the CREATE PM 2.5 estimates were 17% higher.…”

“…Comparing Chinese 2010 anthropogenic emission estimates using various emission inventories (unit: Tg/yr; * indicates that CO values have been divided by 10). (source: MICS [45], REAS [44], EDGAR [47], Wang et al [51], ECLIPSE [46], Y.Zhao et al [52], Y.Xia et al [53], B.Zhao et al [14], Globemiss [54], Y.Kang et al [49], R.Wu et al [55], P.Xu et al [50], Z.Lu et al [48])).…”