Emerging Air Pollution Issues in Changing Pearl River Delta of South China

Abstract

1.1 Background The Pearl River Delta (PRD) in Southern China is one of the most developed regions in China. Administratively, the delta region is constituted by nine cities in Guangdong Province, and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao. The PRD has developed into a manufacturing center of the world since the onset of China’s economic reform in the late 1970‘s. The important role of this region in China is highlighted by the high percentage contribution of gross domestic product (GDP) of Guangdong Province, which is mostly contributed by the PRD cities in the mainland, to that of the nation (>10%, National Bureau of Statistics China, 2009). As an important manufacturing center and city cluster, the PRD region is inevitably affected by severe air pollution problems, which attract much public attention. In response to this situation, a regional air quality monitoring network compositing of 16 automatic stations has been established by the joint effort from Guangdong and Hong Kong governments since late 2005 with an aim to examine the air pollution problem of the region (GDEPMC & HKEPD, 2005). A series of large scale research programs including comprehensive aircraft and groundbase measurements and modeling exercises have been conducted by the scientific community to better characterize and analyse the problem and to find scientific evidence for formulating possible control strategies (e.g. the Program of Regional Integrated Experiments on Air Quality over the PRD of China-PRIDE-PRD in 2004 and 2006) (Zhang et al., 2008; Hua et al., 2008).