10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
How Much Emission Reduction is Needed to Meet Ambient PM2.5 Standards in the Cities of Sichuan Basin?
XUE QIAO, Wenye Deng, Hao Guo, Ya Tang, Jianlin Hu, Qi Ying, Hongliang Zhang, Sichuan University; Louisiana State University
Abstract Number: 86 Working Group: Air Quality in Megacities: from Sources to Control
Abstract Sichuan Basin (SCB) in southwestern China is one of the three regions that are most affected by haze in the country. During 2013 to 2016, annual average PM2.5 concentrations were 63-96 and 54-70 μg m-3 in Chengdu and Chongqing, respectively, which are the economic, education, and transportation hubs in southwestern China. The total population of 110 million in the 18 cities in the 221,000 km2 SCB are in severe risks. Therefore, it is important to investigate how to mitigate PM pollution. PM pollution in the SCB is mainly associated with the high anthropogenic emissions within the basin and the basin landform, which favors air pollutants accumulated and transported across cities within the basin. This study uses a source-oriented version of the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to quantify (1) contributions of different geographical regions to PM2.5 concentrations in the SCB and (2) PM2.5 reduction in these cities under different emission scenarios. As PM2.5 concentrations are highest in winter and lowest in summer, the simulations were performed only for January and August, 2015. The predictions of meteorology (including ambient air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, and relatively humidity) and PM2.5 concentrations were generally in agreement with the observations, giving the confidence in model performance. The results confirmed that the anthropogenic emissions within the basin were the major sources of PM2.5, and inter-city transport of air pollutant within the basin had significant contributions. These suggest the importance of reducing air pollutant emission within the basin in order to improve air quality for the 18 cities. Application of the state-of-art of emission reduction technologies in industries, domestic activities, and power plants can greatly reduce PM2.5 concentrations in the basin, but PM2.5 pollution would be still a problem in some areas, indicating there is a need to adjust the economic and energy structures in the SCB. The environmental capacities of air pollutant emissions for the two largest cities, Chengdu and Chongqing, were also estimated.