AAAR 35th Annual Conference October 17 - October 21, 2016 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Premature Mortality in China Due to Exposure of Outdoor Fine Airborne Particulate Matter: Source Contributions and Responses to Concentration Reductions
Jianlin Hu, Hongliang Zhang, QI YING, Texas A&M University
Abstract Number: 250 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Exposure to high concentrations of airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) significantly increases the mortality of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases in China. Previous assessments of excess mortality (ΔMort) due to PM2.5 exposure were based on coarse resolution chemical transport modeling simulations and relatively old emission inventory data, thus might lead to underestimation of the severity. Sources that contribute to ΔMort have not been quantified. We determined the spatial distribution of ΔMort due to adult (>30 years old) ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebrovascular disease (CEV), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer (LC) at 36-km resolution for 2013 from predicted annual-average surface PM2.5 concentrations using source-oriented Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model along with an ensemble of four regional and global emission inventories. Observation data fusing was applied to provide additional correction of the biases in PM2.5 concentrations from the ensemble. Source contributions to ΔMort were determined based on total ΔMort and fractional source contributions to PM2.5. ΔMort due to COPD, LC, IHD and CEV are 0.329, 0.148, 0.239 and 0.953 million, respectively, leading to a total ΔMort of 1.669 million. Industrial and residential sources were the two leading sources, contributing to 0.508 (30.5%) and 0.366 (21.9%) mp, respectively. Secondary ammonium ion from agriculture, secondary organic aerosol and aerosols from power generation were responsible for 0.204, 0.179 and 0.172 mp of ΔMort, respectively. Contribution of transportation to ΔMort was relatively small, only accounting for 0.096 mp, which is slightly higher than contributions of open burning (0.082 mp) and windblown dust (0.054 mp). Decreasing rate excess mortality per unit reduction of PM2.5 is expected to be slow at high PM loading experienced in most part of China and PM2.5 concentrations need to be greatly reduced before health benefit of emission control becomes evident.