Spatial assessment of air resources in China from 2013 to 2017

Abstract

The concept of air resource management originated in the United States and subsequently became the foundation of most air quality control programs in developed countries. However, little is known about its validity and quantitative assessment methods in regional atmospheric environment management. The aim of this study was to construct an air resource endowment (ARE) index and apply it in a case study for assessing the distribution of ARE across mainland China from 2013 to 2017. The quantification of the ARE index includes two terms: the atmospheric diffusion coefficient (A value) and self-purification ability (B value), which can be calculated via Weather Research and Forecasting modeling (WRF-CALMET). The results indicated that about 15% of China's land area enjoys high ARE, around 20–25% of China's land area was considered to have relatively high or relatively low ARE indices, and ARE in the rest of China's land area (40%) was considered to be low. Further, a complex network correlation model was created and used to demarcate highly inter-correlated regions based on the data mining of the ARE index. Six key Joint Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution (JPCAP) regions with strong synchronicity in the ARE index were identified, which suggests that JPCAP could be implemented separately within each of these demarcated regions. The concepts and analysis methods proposed in this study for determining ARE and regional divisions can have broad significance for JPCAP implementation in China.