Effects of NO x and VOCs from five emission sources on summer surface O3 over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Abstract

The impacts of emissions from industry, power plant, transportation, residential, and biogenic sources on daily maximum surface ozone (O3DM) over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region in North China in the summer of 2007 were examined in a modeling study. The modeling system consisted of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the photochemical dispersion model, CAMx. The factor separation technique (FST) was used to quantify the effect of individual emission source types and the synergistic interactions among two or more types. Additionally, the effectiveness of emission reduction scenarios was explored. The industry, power plant, and transportation emission source types were found to be the most important in terms of their individual effects on O3DM. The key contributor to high surface O3 was power plant emissions, with a peak individual effect of 40 ppbv in the southwestern BTH area. The individual effect from the biogenic emission category was quite low. The synergistic effects from the combinations of each pair of anthropogenic emission types suppressed O3 formation, while the synergistic effects for combinations of three were favorable for O3 formation when the industrial and power plant emission source types coexisted. The quadruple synergistic effects were positive only with the combination of power plant, transportation, residential, and biogenic sources, while the quintuple synergistic effect showed only minor impacts on O3DM concentrations. A 30% reduction in industrial and transportation sources produced the most effective impacts on O3 concentrations, with a maximum decrease of 20 ppbv. These results suggested that the synergistic impacts among emission source types should be considered when formulating emission control strategies for O3 reduction.