Source emission contributions to particulate matter and ozone, and their health impacts in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Southeast Asia has been experiencing severe air pollution due to its substantial local emissions and transboundary air pollution (TAP), causing significant health impacts. While literature focused on air pollution episodes in Southeast Asia, we have yet to fully understand the contributions of local emission sectors and TAP to air quality in the region annually. Herein we employed air quality modeling with the species tagging method to first assess the contributions of source sectors and locations to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) in Southeast Asia and to hence quantify the resultant health impacts. Our results show that air pollutant exposure was associated with ∼ 900 thousand premature mortalities in Southeast Asia every year. Of which, 77 % and 23 % were due to local emissions and TAP in the region, respectively. ∼ 87 % of the premature mortalities due to local emissions were induced by PM2.5 exposure, whereas the remaining were due to O3 exposure. PM2.5-related health impacts were dominated by industrial (45 %) and residential (17 %) emissions, and O3-related impacts were mainly due to biogenic (40 %) and road transport (24 %) emissions. Furthermore, the health impacts of TAP were particularly adverse in Brunei, East Timor, Singapore, Laos, and border regions.