Abstract
The evaluation of China’s air pollution and the effectiveness of its governance policies is currently a topic of general concern in the academic community. We have improved the traditional evaluation method to construct a comprehensive air quality assessment model based on China’s major air pollutants. Using the daily air pollutant data of 2015–2018, we calculated and analyzed the monthly air quality of nine cities in the Pearl River Delta of China, and conducted a comparative study on the effect of the air pollution control policies of the cities in the Pearl River Delta. We found that the air quality control policies in those nine cities were not consistent. Specifically, the pollution control policies of Guangzhou and Foshan have achieved more than 20% improvement. The pollution control policies of Dongguan and Zhaoqing have also achieved more than 10% improvement. However, due to the relative lag of the formulation and implementation of air pollution control policies, the air quality of Jiangmen, Zhuhai and Zhongshan has declined. Based on the analysis of the air quality assessment results and the effects of governance policies in each city during the study period, we propose suggestions for further improvement of the effectiveness of air pollution control policies in the region.
Highlights
During human production activities, various pollutants are released into the atmosphere [1,2].These pollutants linger in the atmosphere for a certain period of time and participate in the atmospheric circulation by exchanging materials with vegetation, ocean, soil, etc
In order to make up for this imperfection of the TOPSIS evaluation method and more objectively evaluate the air quality of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) cities based on the six major air pollutants, this paper has integrated the entropy value into the TOPSIS evaluation method based on research trends in recent years to scientifically calculate the weight of each indicator and achieve more objective evaluation results [59,60,61]
The main reason for this is: as the provincial capital and a megacity, Guangzhou has always been high on industrial waste gas emissions and the number of mobile pollution sources such as motor vehicles [65], which has taken a toll its air quality, while the poor air quality of Dongguan, Foshan and Zhaoqing has something to do with their geographical location; these three cities are located in the hinterland of the PRD, so they are affected by the pollutants from the northern part of China and susceptible to pollution transmitted from other cities [66,67]
Summary
Various pollutants are released into the atmosphere [1,2]. These pollutants linger in the atmosphere for a certain period of time and participate in the atmospheric circulation by exchanging materials with vegetation, ocean, soil, etc. When the concentration of these pollutants in the atmosphere exceeds the safety threshold, it will cause acute or chronic damage to humans, animals and plants, directly or indirectly [3,4,5,6,7]. The investment in environmental pollution mitigation and control continues to rise (see Figure 1) [17].
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