scholarly journals Investigating the Influence of the Implementation of an Energy Development Plan on Air Quality Using WRF-CAMx Modeling Tools: A Case Study of Shandong Province in China

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luo ◽  
He ◽  
Yu ◽  
He ◽  
Zhang ◽  
...  

In this paper, the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) modeling system with the particulate source apportionment technology (PSAT) module was used to study and analyze the spatial and temporal distribution of atmospheric pollutant concentrations and the source apportionment of fine particles (PM2.5) under the base year and an emission reduction scenario in the Shandong province, China. Our results show that industry is the largest contributor of PM2.5. In addition, the contribution of key energy-related industries was as high as 29.5%, with the thermal power industry being the largest individual contributor. In January, the largest contribution came from residents, reaching 41.3%. Moreover, loose coal burning in rural areas contributed up to 19.4% in winter. Our results also show that the emission reduction scenario had palpable effects on the reduction of air pollution. The more the emissions of SO2, NOx, PM2.5, and PM10 were reduced, the more the average concentration was decreased. The implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction policies by industry and resident is conducive to improving the quality of the atmospheric environment. In particular, a comprehensive control of loose coal burning in winter could significantly improve heavy pollution by particulate matter in winter.

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (7) ◽  
pp. E1052-E1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Venkataraman ◽  
M. Bhushan ◽  
S. Dey ◽  
D. Ganguly ◽  
T. Gupta ◽  
...  

Abstract Climate change and air pollution have important societal consequences, especially in emerging economies, wherein transitions from polluting technologies to cleaner alternatives coincide with high population vulnerability to environmental threats. India is home to a fifth of the world’s population and a gamut of human activities, employing a far ranging spectrum of technologies and fuels, with consequent emissions. Atmospheric fine particles or aerosols in the region predominate in carbonaceous constituents and dust. Multi-institutional studies in the region have earlier focused on natural and anthropogenic climate forcing by aerosols and feedbacks on regional and global climate. Important gaps remain in understanding human activities influencing emissions, emission aerosol properties, and regional atmospheric processes, specifically those related to carbonaceous aerosol impacts on climate and air quality. With an aim to address these gaps, the COALESCE (Carbonaceous Aerosol Emissions, Source Apportionment and Climate Impacts) project was launched on 7 July 2017. The project adopts integration of scientific methods developed by both the climate and air quality research communities. New fundamental knowledge from the project and strong links to India’s policy framework would enable climate and clean-air action in the region. The article describes the scientific rationale, objectives, and planned activities under COALESCE to explore engagement with the international climate and air quality research communities and to enable eventual dissemination of research findings, knowledge products, and decision-support tools.


1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Ripl

Abstract Densely populated urban areas, which have developed over the last century, depend heavily on centralized water supply, sewage treatment plants, and hydroelectric or thermal power generation with vast demand of cooling water. Considerable areas have been drained or sealed, and the short-circuited water cycle has been distorted. Large rivers have been converted to shipping canals with the permanent risk of accidental pollution. Technical means such as sewage treatment, air filters, emission control and lake and soil restoration measures have contributed to correct the environmental damage. However, a balance sheet for irreversible matter losses (mainly base cation charges) from the urbanized areas and the surrounding landscape into the sea shows ever-increasing trends. These losses are destabilizing the ecosystems. In this paper, management of the water cycle in urban areas, together with the coupled matter cycles, is discussed. Particular reference is given to Metropolitan Berlin, with a network of shipping canals, which move biologically treated waste, containing base cations and nutrients to the surrounding rural areas. This could create manageable productive wetlands and re-establish soil fertility. At the same time, the natural cooling system close to the urban areas will be improved by providing more areas with permanent vegetation. In addition, reduction of the present large oscillations of the groundwater table, resulting from groundwater pumping and its recharge with less polluted surface water, is contemplated. The widely used shoreline infiltration of the Havel River should then be eliminated and the severe damage of the littoral vegetation in large sections of the Havel River system be avoided.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 788
Author(s):  
Rong Feng ◽  
Hongmei Xu ◽  
Zexuan Wang ◽  
Yunxuan Gu ◽  
Zhe Liu ◽  
...  

In the context of the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), strict lockdown policies were implemented to control nonessential human activities in Xi’an, northwest China, which greatly limited the spread of the pandemic and affected air quality. Compared with pre-lockdown, the air quality index and concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and CO during the lockdown reduced, but the reductions were not very significant. NO2 levels exhibited the largest decrease (52%) during lockdown, owing to the remarkable decreased motor vehicle emissions. The highest K+ and lowest Ca2+ concentrations in PM2.5 samples could be attributed to the increase in household biomass fuel consumption in suburbs and rural areas around Xi’an and the decrease in human physical activities in Xi’an (e.g., human travel, vehicle emissions, construction activities), respectively, during the lockdown period. Secondary chemical reactions in the atmosphere increased in the lockdown period, as evidenced by the increased O3 level (increased by 160%) and OC/EC ratios in PM2.5 (increased by 26%), compared with pre-lockdown levels. The results, based on a natural experiment in this study, can be used as a reference for studying the formation and source of air pollution in Xi’an and provide evidence for establishing future long-term air pollution control policies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Sylwia Janta-Lipińska ◽  

The nitrogen oxides in a flame of burning fuel can be created by many mechanisms. The amount of NOx concentration emitted to the ground atmosphere mainly depends on the type of fuel burned in the industrial and heating boilers. Changes in the country's thermal policy and requirements that are set for us by the European Union States are forcing us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Directed metered ballast method is one of the most attractive techniques for reducing NOx emissions. In recent years, moisture injection technology is still investigated on low and medium power thermal power boilers operating on gaseous fuel. The goal of this work was to perform the investigations of the process of a moisture injection into the zones of decisive influence (SDW-I and SDW-II) on steam and water boilers: DKVR 10-13, DKVR 20-13, DE 25-14 and PTVM-50. The obtained results clearly show how the proposed method affects NOx reduction and boiler efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Letaïef ◽  
Pierre Camps ◽  
Thierry Poidras ◽  
Patrick Nicol ◽  
Delphine Bosch ◽  
...  

<p>Numerous studies have already shown the possibility of tracing the sources, the<br>compositions, and the concentration of atmospheric pollutants deposited on plant<br>leaves. In environmental geochemistry, inter-element and isotope ratios from<br>chemical element assays have been used for these purposes. Alternatively,<br>environmental magnetism represents a quick and inexpensive asset that is<br>increasingly used as a relative indicator for concentrations of air pollutant on bio<br>accumulator surfaces such as plants. However, a fundamental issue is still pending:<br>Do plants in urban areas represent a sink for fine particles that is sufficiently effective<br>to improve air quality? This is a very topical issue because some studies have shown<br>that the foliage can trap fine particles by different dry deposition processes, while<br>other studies based on CFD models indicate that plant hedges in cities can hinder<br>the atmospheric dispersion of pollutants and therefore increase pollution at the level of<br>emission sources such as traffic. To date, no consensus was made because several<br>factors not necessary well known must be taken into account, such as, PM<br>concentration and size, prevailing wind, surface structures, epicuticular wax, to<br>mention just a few examples. A first step toward the understanding of the impact of<br>urban greens on air quality is the precise determination of the deposition velocity (Vd)<br>parameter. This latter is specific for each species and it is most of the time<br>underestimated in modeling-based studies by taking standard values.<br>In that perspective, we built a wind tunnel (6 m long, 86 cm wide and 86 cm high) to<br>perform analogical experiments on different endemic species. All parameters are<br>controlled, i.e, the wind speed, the nature and the injection time of pollutants (Gasoline<br>or Diesel exhausts, brakes or tires dust, etc…). We can provide the PM concentrations<br>upwind and downwind of natural reconstituted hedges by two dustmeters (LOACs -<br>MétéoModem). Beforehand, parameters such as the hedge resistance (%) or the leaf<br>area index (LAI) have been estimated for each studied specie to allow comparability<br>between plants removal potential. The interest would ultimately combine PM<br>concentration measured by size bins from the LOACs with magnetic measurements<br>(ARM, IRM100mT, IRM300mT and SIRM) of plant leaves. The idea is to check whether it<br>would be possible to precisely determine in situ the dust removal rate by urban greens<br>with environmental magnetism measurements. Up to now, we have carried out on<br>different endemic species such as Elaeagnus x ebbingei leaves and Mediterranean<br>pine needles, the results of which will be presented.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 2153-2165 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Ivey ◽  
H. A. Holmes ◽  
Y. T. Hu ◽  
J. A. Mulholland ◽  
A. G. Russell

Abstract. An integral part of air quality management is knowledge of the impact of pollutant sources on ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM). There is also a growing desire to directly use source impact estimates in health studies; however, source impacts cannot be directly measured. Several limitations are inherent in most source apportionment methods motivating the development of a novel hybrid approach that is used to estimate source impacts by combining the capabilities of receptor models (RMs) and chemical transport models (CTMs). The hybrid CTM–RM method calculates adjustment factors to refine the CTM-estimated impact of sources at monitoring sites using pollutant species observations and the results of CTM sensitivity analyses, though it does not directly generate spatial source impact fields. The CTM used here is the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, and the RM approach is based on the chemical mass balance (CMB) model. This work presents a method that utilizes kriging to spatially interpolate source-specific impact adjustment factors to generate revised CTM source impact fields from the CTM–RM method results, and is applied for January 2004 over the continental United States. The kriging step is evaluated using data withholding and by comparing results to data from alternative networks. Data withholding also provides an estimate of method uncertainty. Directly applied (hybrid, HYB) and spatially interpolated (spatial hybrid, SH) hybrid adjustment factors at withheld observation sites had a correlation coefficient of 0.89, a linear regression slope of 0.83 ± 0.02, and an intercept of 0.14 ± 0.02. Refined source contributions reflect current knowledge of PM emissions (e.g., significant differences in biomass burning impact fields). Concentrations of 19 species and total PM2.5 mass were reconstructed for withheld observation sites using HYB and SH adjustment factors. The mean concentrations of total PM2.5 at withheld observation sites were 11.7 (± 8.3), 16.3 (± 11), 8.59 (± 4.7), and 9.2 (± 5.7) μg m−3 for the observations, CTM, HYB, and SH predictions, respectively. Correlations improved for concentrations of major ions, including nitrate (CMAQ–DDM (decoupled direct method): 0.404, SH: 0.449), ammonium (CMAQ–DDM: 0.454, SH: 0.492), and sulfate (CMAQ–DDM: 0.706, SH: 0.730). Errors in simulated concentrations of metals were reduced considerably: 295 % (CMAQ–DDM) to 139 % (SH) for vanadium; and 1340 % (CMAQ–DDM) to 326 % (SH) for manganese. Errors in simulated concentrations of some metals are expected to remain given the uncertainties in source profiles. Species concentrations were reconstructed using SH results, and the error relative to observed concentrations was greatly reduced as compared to CTM-simulated concentrations. Results demonstrate that the hybrid method along with a spatial extension can be used for large-scale, spatially resolved source apportionment studies where observational data are spatially and temporally limited.


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