Abstract
PM2.5 pollution in China is becoming increasingly severe, threatening public health. The major goal of this study is to evaluate the mortality rate attributed to PM2.5 pollution and design pollution mitigation schemes in a southern district of China through a two-objective optimization model. The mortality rate is estimated by health effect evaluation model. Subjected to limited data information, it is assumed that the meta-analysis method, through summarizing and combining the research results on the same subject, was suitable to estimate the percentage of deaths caused by PM2.5 pollution. The critical parameters, such as the total number of deaths and the background concentration of PM2.5, were obtained through on-site survey, data collection, literature search, policy analysis, and expert consultation. The equations for estimating the number of deaths caused by PM2.5 pollution were established by incorporating the relationship coefficient of exposure to reaction, calculated residual PM2.5 concentration of affected region, and statistical total base number of deaths into a general framework. To balance the cost from air quality improvement and human health risks, a two-objective optimization model was developed. The first objective is to minimize the mortality rate attributable to PM2.5 pollution, and the second objective is to minimize the total system cost over three periods. The optimization results demonstrated that the combination of weights assigned to the two objectives significantly influenced the model output. For example, a high weight value assigned to minimizing the number of deaths results in the increased use of treatment techniques with higher efficiencies and a dramatic decrease in pollutant concentrations. In contrast, a model weighted more toward minimizing economic loss may lead to an increase in the death toll due to exposure to higher air pollution levels. The effective application of this model in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen City, China, is expected to serve as a basis for similar work in other parts of the world in the future.
Highlights
With the rapid industrialization and urbanization and continuous improvement of human infrastructure, many pollutants are released into the atmosphere, deteriorating the living environment
This study focused on the Nanshan District of Shenzhen in southeast China, which is expected to serve as a basis for similar work in other parts of the world in the future
Using the random-effects model, we found lower-bound and upper-bound values of 0.0033 and 0.0067, respectively, indicating that the percentage of total mortality increased by 0.47% when the PM2.5 concentration increased by a certain unit (10 μg/m3 in this case)
Summary
With the rapid industrialization and urbanization and continuous improvement of human infrastructure, many pollutants (such as PM, SO2 , and CO) are released into the atmosphere, deteriorating the living environment. The annual average values of SO2 and PM10 in the Nanshan District have reached 0.01 and 0.05 mg/m3 , respectively, with yearly growth rates of approximately 15% and 7%, respectively [67]. This phenomenon is largely attributed to the production and supply of electricity and heating industries, which accounted for 91.95% of the total emissions. Mitigating atmospheric pollutant emissions in the Nanshan District could improve the air quality in the district and throughout Shenzhen city.
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