Impact of various emission control schemes on air quality using WRF-Chem during APEC China 2014

Abstract

Emission control measures have been implemented to make air quality good enough for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) China 2014, which provides us with an ideal test-bed to determine how these measures affect air quality in Beijing and surrounding areas. Based on hourly observations at eight monitoring sites of Beijing, the concentrations of other primary atmospheric pollutants during APEC were found to have significantly lower magnitudes than those before APEC, with the exception of a higher O3 concentration. Overall, WRF/Chem reproduced the observed time series of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, CO, and O3 notably well. To investigate the impact of emission control measures on air quality on both local and regional scales, four emission control schemes were developed according to the locations where emission reduction had taken place; the corresponding simulations were subsequently run separately. Scheme S2 (emission control implemented in Beijing) resulted in reductions of 22%, 24%, 10% and 22% for the concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and CO, respectively, compared with 14%, 14%, 8%, and 13% for scheme S3 (emission controls implemented from outside of Beijing). This finding indicates that the local emission reduction in Beijing contributes more to the improved air quality in Beijing during APEC China 2014 than does the emission reduction from outside of Beijing. In terms of the impact on the regional scale, the real emission control scheme led to significant reduction of PM2.5 throughout the whole domain. Although the regional impact cannot be completely ignored, both emission reduction measures implemented in Beijing and those implemented outside of Beijing favor greater reduction in PM2.5 in the domains where measurements are presumably taken, as compared with other domains. Therefore, to improve the air quality in Beijing, more coordinated efforts should be made, particularly in the aspect of more stringent reduction and control strategies on pollutant emission sources across the NCP.