Abstract
Particulate matter (PM) air pollution has become a serious environmental problem in Nanjing and poses great health risks to local residents. In this study, characteristics of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) over Nanjing were analyzed using hourly and daily averaged PM2.5 concentrations and meteorological parameters collected from nine national monitoring sites during the period of March 2014 to February 2017. Then, the integrated exposure-response (IER) model was applied to assess premature mortality, years of life lost (YLL) attributable to PM2.5, and mortality benefits due to PM2.5 reductions. The concentrations of PM2.5 varied among hours, seasons and years, which can be explained by differences in emission sources, secondary formations and meteorological conditions. The decreased ratio of PM2.5 to CO suggested that secondary contributions decreased while the relative contributions of vehicle exhaust increased from increased CO data. According to the values of attributable fractions (AF), stroke was the major cause of death, followed by ischemic heart disease (IHD), lung cancer (LC) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The estimated total deaths in Nanjing due to PM2.5 were 12,055 and 10,771, leading to 98,802 and 87,647 years of life lost in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The elderly and males had higher health risks than youngsters and females. When the PM2.5 concentrations meet the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) of 10 μg/m3, 84% of the premature deaths would be avoided, indicating that the Nanjing government needs to adopt more stringent measure to reduce PM pollution and enhance the health benefits.
Highlights
Along with rapid industrialization and urbanization, China has been experiencing severe air pollution problems, especially in particulate matter (PM) pollution
This paper analyzed the temporal characteristics of PM2.5 in Nanjing from March 2014 to February 2017, as well as their relationships with meteorological parameters
Annual average PM2.5 concentrations in 2014, 2015 and 2016 were 71 ± 35, 55 ± 33 and 45 ± 29 μg/m3, respectively, which showed a continuous decrease on a year to year basis
Summary
Along with rapid industrialization and urbanization, China has been experiencing severe air pollution problems, especially in particulate matter (PM) pollution. The annual average concentrations of particles with an aerodynamic diameter equal to or less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5 ) in most Chinese cities have greatly exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline value of 10 μg/m3 [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is one of the most developed and polluted regions in China, and it has been identified as a key area for the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan since 2013 [8]. Nanjing, located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River region, is the capital city of. Public Health 2018, 15, 602; doi:10.3390/ijerph15040602 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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