Essay Example on China's Pollution Menace: PM2.5, Motor Vehicles,Industry, Fossil Fuels

Introduction

China is facing pollution menace with PM2.5 as a result of the rapid growth of urbanization and its global economy. Regions prone to pollution problems include Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Wu, Zhang, Schwab, Huang, Wei, & Yuan, 2019). The main source of PM2.5 in China comprises of motor vehicles, industrial activities, soil specks of dust, combustion of fossil-fuel, and biomass burning.

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Biomass burning is caused by field burning of agriculture and biomass waste which has caused more concerns since the vehicle and industrial emission are under regulatory standards such as the use of power plant scrubbers. Additionally, the high demand to increase crop yield and less demand on the use of fossil fuel as China experienced tremendous development in the rural areas has been a high contributor to the increase of biomass burning pollution.

Literature Review

According to research studies by (Chen, et al. 2018; Huang, et al. 2018; Chan, et al. 2017; Zhou, et al. 2017), Biomass burning account for approximately 45 to 75% of primary organic carbon and elemental carbon between 2006-2010 in China. Additionally, biomass burning is considered a major facilitator of uncertainty in the quality of air modeling (Zhang, et al. 2018). Climate change and human health effects caused by biomass burning emission have raised concerns on the need to quantify this contribution as well as to find means to improve air quality.

Sang, et al. (2017), in the study about biomass burning noted that to ease the difficulties involved in establishing reliable inventory for biomass burning, individual source tracers such as levoglucosan (LG), water-soluble Potassium ions and receptor modeling methods are used to evaluate biomass burning contribution to PM2.5 (Sang, et al. 2017). However, LG is usually used organic tracer for biomass burning aerosols.

Potential Implication to Science and Policy

LG detection requires intensive scientific research and intervention. The compound is purely made from the pyrolysis of cellulose and hemicellulose. Moreover, it is known to be a very stable compound in the atmosphere, it records no decay over more than 10 days in extremely acidic conditions (Cahoon et al. 2018). Another observation is a little loss of LG in biomass burning soot when exposed to the concentration of ozone and UV radiation. Furthermore, the measured level of LG at remote monitoring areas in the far Pacific Ocean indicates no degradation upon transportation from the continent of Asia within 5-6 days. Using such a scientific approach has proven to attain the required objective of tracing the biomass burning emission aerosol.

Limitations and Recommendation

Although national, regional, urban and rural inventories have been made in China on biomass burning, there is still a huge uncertainty in the biomass burning emission estimation due to incomprehensive and incomplete collection of data as well as the variable factors on emission reliant on humidity, burning condition, vegetation types, and direction of the wind (Chan, et al. 2016). LG concentration at four urban sites along the southeastern coast of China showed variation seasonally with summer having minimum amount while winter experiences the maximum amount of concentration (Chen, et al. 2017). The Data obtained using LG organic tracer is reliable and can be supported by real data. For instance, the summer low levels are a result of fewer biomass burning activities in the Philippines region experiencing upwind. Perhaps, similarly to PM2.5, the variation of LG is much influenced by rainfall distribution.

However, the recommendation for improvement of data, another tracer should be included and compared in ratio. Water-soluble Potassium ions (Nss-k+) is preferred. According to (Chen, et al. 2017) Seasonal correlation between LG and Nss-k+ concentration shows minimal difference making the combination use of tracers to provide reliable data.

Conclusion

The review shows that the influence of biomass burning actions on PM2.5 is a rising concern issue along the southeastern coastline of China. Therefore, relevant governing policies should be put in place to curb and mitigate biomass burning aerosols. Perhaps, such implementation will play an important role to reduce the air pollution in China atmosphere.

References

Wu, S. P., Zhang, Y. J., Schwab, J. J., Huang, S., Wei, Y., & Yuan, C. S. (2019). Biomass burning contributions to urban PM2. 5 along the coastal lines of southeastern China. Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 68(1), 30666. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/tellusb.v68.30666

Chen, K., Yin, Y., Kong, S., Xiao, H., Wu, Y., Chen, J., & Li, A. (2018). Size-resolved chemical composition of atmospheric particles during a straw burning period at Mt. Huang (the Yellow Mountain) of China. Atmospheric Environment, 84, 380-389. http://dqwl.nuist.edu.cn/TeacherFiles/file/20160630/6360287396980794628983699.pdf

Huang, K., Fu, J. S., Hsu, N. C., Gao, Y., Dong, X., Tsay, S. C., & Lam, Y. F. (2018). Impact assessment of biomass burning on air quality in Southeast and East Asia during BASE-ASIA. Atmospheric Environment, 78, 291-302. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140010539.pdf

Chan, C. Y., Chan, L. Y., Harris, J. M., Oltmans, S. J., Blake, D. R., Qin, Y., ... & Zheng, X. D. (2017). Characteristics of biomass burning emission sources, transport, and chemical speciation in enhanced springtime tropospheric ozone profile over Hong Kong. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 108(D1), ACH-3. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2001JD001555

Zhou, Y., Xing, X., Lang, J., Chen, D., Cheng, S., Wei, L., ... & Liu, C. (2017). A comprehensive biomass burning emission inventory with high spatial and temporal resolution in China. Atmos. Chem. Phys, 17(4), 2839-2864. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dui_Wu/publication/222682996

Zhang, G., Li, J., Li, X. D., Xu, Y., Guo, L. L., Tang, J. H., ... & Chen, Y. J. (2018). Impact of anthropogenic emissions and open biomass burning on regional carbonaceous aerosols in South China. Environmental Pollution, 158(11), 3392-3400. http://ir.yic.ac.cn/bitstream

Sang, X. F., Chan, C. Y., Engling, G., Chan, L. Y., Wang, X. M., Zhang, Y. N., ... & Hu, M. (2017). Levoglucosan enhancement in ambient aerosol during springtime transport events of biomass burning smoke to Southeast China. Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 63(1), 129-139. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-0889.2010.00515.x

Cahoon Jr, D. R., Stocks, B. J., Levine, J. S., Cofer III, W. R., & Pierson, J. M. (2018). Satellite analysis of the severe 2010 forest fires in northern China and southeastern Siberia. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 99(D9), 18627-18638. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/94JD01024

Chen, J., Li, C., Ristovski, Z., Milic, A., Gu, Y., Islam, M. S., ... & Guo, H. (2017). A review of biomass burning: Emissions and impacts on air quality, health, and climate in China. Science of the Total Environment, 579, 1000-1034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.025

Chan, L. Y., Chan, C. Y., Liu, H. Y., Christopher, S., Oltmans, S. J., & Harris, J. M. (2016). A case study on biomass burning in Southeast Asia and the enhancement of tropospheric ozone over Hong Kong. Geophysical Research Letters, 27(10), 1479-1482. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/1999GL010855