The Dilemma and Countermeasures of Legal Control of Atmospheric Haze and Smoke Dust Pollution

Smoke dust is an important factor leading to haze pollution. There is no doubt about the serious impact of smoke dust pollution on public health, life and economic development. A consensus has been reached on the use of legal means to control smoke dust pollution. However, the existing laws still have too many problems to deal with the increasingly complex smoke dust pollution. It is a must to change the regulatory objects of the current “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law (APPC Law)”, speed up the establishment of a regional joint prevention and control legal system, and establish local characteristic legislation in accordance with local conditions. We need establish a “three-in-one” legal system for the prevention and control of atmospheric haze and smoke dust pollution with “APPC Law” at the top, local legislations at the bottom and regional joint prevention and control law in the middle.

An Atmospheric Origin for HCN-Derived Polymers on Titan

Titan’s haze is strongly suspected to be an HCN-derived polymer, but despite the first in situ measurements by the ESA-Huygens space probe, its chemical composition and formation process remain largely unknown. To investigate this question, we simulated the atmospheric haze formation process, experimentally. We synthesized analogues of Titan’s haze, named Titan tholins, in an irradiated N2–CH4 gas mixture, mimicking Titan’s upper atmosphere chemistry. HCN was monitored in situ in the gas phase simultaneously with the formation and evolution of the haze particles. We show that HCN is produced as long as the particles are absent, and is then progressively consumed when the particles appear and grow. This work highlights HCN as an effective precursor of Titan’s haze and confirms the HCN-derived polymer nature of the haze.

GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS OF ATMOSPHERIC HAZE EFFECT BY SOURCE AND SINK LANDSCAPE

Based on geospatial analysis model, this paper analyzes the relationship between the landscape patterns of source and sink in urban areas and atmospheric haze pollution. Firstly, the classification result and aerosol optical thickness (AOD) of Wuhan are divided into a number of square grids with the side length of 6 km, and the category level landscape indices (PLAND, PD, COHESION, LPI, FRAC_MN) and AOD of each grid are calculated. Then the source and sink landscapes of atmospheric haze pollution are selected based on the analysis of the correlation between landscape indices and AOD. Next, to make the following analysis more efficient, the indices selected before should be determined through the correlation coefficient between them. Finally, due to the spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity of the data used in this paper, spatial autoregressive model and geo-weighted regression model are used to analyze atmospheric haze effect by source and sink landscape from the global and local level. <br><br> The results show that the source landscape of atmospheric haze pollution is the building, and the sink landscapes are shrub and woodland. PLAND, PD and COHESION are suitable for describing the atmospheric haze effect by source and sink landscape. Comparing these models, the fitting effect of SLM, SEM and GWR is significantly better than that of OLS model. The SLM model is superior to the SEM model in this paper. Although the fitting effect of GWR model is more unsuited than that of SLM, the influence degree of influencing factors on atmospheric haze of different geography can be expressed clearer. Through the analysis results of these models, following conclusions can be summarized: Reducing the proportion of source landscape area and increasing the degree of fragmentation could cut down aerosol optical thickness; And distributing the source and sink landscape evenly and interspersedly could effectively reduce aerosol optical thickness which represents atmospheric haze pollution; For Wuhan City, the method of adjusting the built-up area slightly and planning the non-built-up areas reasonably can be taken to reduce atmospheric haze pollution.

A GIS Model for PM10 Exposure from Biomass Burning in the North of Thailand

Human exposure to particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter below 10 μm (PM10) is found to be associated with biomass burning in Thailand. Recent investigations confirm that primary sources of PM10 are natural forest fires and agricultural waste burning. Incidence of atmospheric haze increases significantly during the dry season from January to April. PM10 exposure in eight provinces in Northern Thailand were determined using GIS through spatial interpolation. Daily average ambient PM10 concentrations from 10 monitoring stations were used as the input data for the GIS model. Three interpolation techniques: Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), Kriging and Spline, were compared. The predicted PM10concentrations were verified with field measurements. GIS-based maps illustrated the variability of PM10 distribution and high-risk locations, which were found to be associated with wind direction and forest fire frequencies. Mae Hong Son, Chiang Rai and Phrae were found to be at highest risk of PM10 exposure during the dry season.