Abstract
Abstract. Substantial anthropogenic emissions from China have resulted in serious air pollution, and this has generated considerable academic and public concern. The physical transport of air pollutants in the atmosphere has been extensively investigated; however, understanding the mechanisms how the pollutant was transferred through economic and trade activities remains a challenge. For the first time, we quantified and tracked China's air pollutant emission flows embodied in interprovincial trade, using a multiregional input–output model framework. Trade relative emissions for four key air pollutants (primary fine particle matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and non-methane volatile organic compounds) were assessed for 2007 in each Chinese province. We found that emissions were significantly redistributed among provinces owing to interprovincial trade. Large amounts of emissions were embodied in the imports of eastern regions from northern and central regions, and these were determined by differences in regional economic status and environmental policy. It is suggested that measures should be introduced to reduce air pollution by integrating cross-regional consumers and producers within national agreements to encourage efficiency improvement in the supply chain and optimize consumption structure internationally. The consumption-based air pollutant emission inventory developed in this work can be further used to attribute pollution to various economic activities and final demand types with the aid of air quality models.
Highlights
China’s rapid industrialization since 2000 has been accompanied by large increases in emissions of air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) and black carbon (BC) (Ohara et al, 2007; Lin et al, 2010; Zhang et al, 2009)
Liu et al (2012) developed an multiregional input– output (MRIO) model consisting of 30 sectors and 30 provinces in China, which has been widely used to assess CO2 emissions embodied in trade flows within China and internationally in 2007 (Feng et al, 2013)
We found that emissions from local consumptions contributed 62, 46, 46 and 56 % of national total emissions for primary PM2.5, SO2, NOx and NMVOC, respectively, with large variations between provinces
Summary
China’s rapid industrialization since 2000 has been accompanied by large increases in emissions of air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) and black carbon (BC) (Ohara et al, 2007; Lin et al, 2010; Zhang et al, 2009). Zhao et al.: Assessment of China’s virtual air pollution transport ulate matter is considered the most substantial health risk in China, having contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths and removing 25 million healthy life years in 2010 alone (Yang et al, 2013). China’s government announced its Action Plan for Air Pollution Control in September 2013 with the purpose of supporting efforts to reduce air pollution. In this plan, air quality and economic development are of equal importance in assessing the performance of government officials at local, provincial and national levels
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