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Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering

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Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.    0, Vol. Issue () : 9    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-016-0853-y
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Space view of the decadal variation for typical air pollutants in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China
Zifeng WANG1,Min SHAO2,*(),Liangfu CHEN1,*(),Minghui TAO1,Liuju ZHONG3,Duohong CHEN3,Meng FAN1,Yang WANG1,Xinhui WANG1
1. State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Jointly Sponsored by Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100101, China
2. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100876, China
3. Guangdong Environmental Monitoring Center, Guangzhou 510308, China
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Abstract

Spatial and temporal trends of the typical pollutants in PRD viewed from space.

Comparisons of the satellite retrievals with the collocated in situ data are given.

Among different MCs, the control measures applied in PRD are the most effective.

The unique HCHO trends imply significant contribution from the biogenic origins.

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is one of the most industrialized, urbanized and populated regions in China, and thus has been long suffering from severe air pollutions. Space data provide a unique perspective for investigating the atmospheric environment at a regional scale. By utilizing multiple satellite retrievals from 2005 to 2013, this study presented, for the first time, the spatial patterns and temporal trends of typical air pollutants over PRD and its vicinity. As viewed from space, aerosol optical depth (AOD), NO2 and SO2 all had their higher values at the central part of PRD, and showed clear descending gradients as moving to the outskirt of this region. As to the inter-annual variation, all these pollutants had decreasing trends in PRD during the study period, which generally agreed with the relevant in situ measurements. However, the satellite retrievals differed from ground measurements when addressing NO2 and SO2 in the vicinity of PRD. This work also provides the inter-comparison among PRD and three other metropolitan clusters in China: PRD had relatively high AOD, moderate NO2 and low SO2 levels, and it was the only region achieving the effective reduction of NO2 and SO2 during last decade. Unlike the previous three pollutants, HCHO observed by satellite showed very special patterns: it had a relatively homogeneous spatial distribution over both of PRD and its vicinity, and presented an opposite increasing trend from 2005 to 2010. Moreover, PRD had the highest HCHO level among all the metropolitan clusters, hinting a considerable contribution of biogenic origins of HCHO in PRD.
Keywords The Pearl River Delta (PRD)      Satellite monitoring      Regional air quality      Long-term trend      HCHO     
PACS:     
Fund: 
Corresponding Author(s): Min SHAO,Liangfu CHEN   
Issue Date: 20 June 2016
 Cite this article:   
Zifeng WANG,Min SHAO,Liangfu CHEN, et al. Space view of the decadal variation for typical air pollutants in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in China[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 0, (): 9.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-016-0853-y
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y0/V/I/9
Fig.1  Information of study areas, including the land use and topography of Guangdong, as well as the detailed surface of PRD based on the true-color satellite image
Fig.2  Spatial distributions of satellite retrieved AOD (a), NO2 VCD (b), SO2 VCD (c) and HCHO VCD (d) in Guangdong Province (with PRD highlighted by red boundary) averaged for 2005–2013
Fig.3  2005 to 2013 mean values and standard errors of satellite retrievals of AOD, NO2, SO2 and HCHO, as well as the relevant in-situ measurements of PM10, NO2 and SO2 for (a) PRD and each of its cities, and (b) Vic-PRD and each of its cities, respectively
Fig.4  Annual mean distributions of the satellite retrieved AOD, NO2, SO2 and HCHO (a-d, respectively) in PRD in 2005 (left panels) and in 2013 (middle panels), as well as their relative difference (right panels)
parameter* region year
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
AOD PRD 0.70 0.69 0.66 0.57 0.56 0.62 0.61 0.64 0.51
Vic-PRD 0.60 0.58 0.62 0.48 0.51 0.51 0.55 0.53 0.41
Guangdong 0.62 0.60 0.62 0.50 0.52 0.54 0.56 0.56 0.43
NO2 VCD PRD 8.62 8.41 8.83 7.73 7.35 7.15 7.55 6.48 7.38
Vic-PRD 3.02 3.01 3.42 3.02 3.14 3.07 3.55 3.03 2.59
Guangdong 4.56 4.49 4.85 4.28 4.27 4.13 4.60 3.93 3.71
SO2 VCD PRD 0.48 0.47 0.38 0.42 0.27 0.36 0.27 0.14 0.19
Vic-PRD 0.16 0.12 0.10 0.19 0.09 0.14 0.15 0.10 0.11
Guangdong 0.24 0.25 0.17 0.25 0.16 0.23 0.19 0.10 0.18
HCHO VCD PRD 12.61 13.36 13.98 13.10 14.35 15.25 13.55 14.77 13.36
Vic-PRD 11.66 12.65 13.19 12.90 13.10 15.03 11.82 12.85 10.48
Guangdong 12.07 13.05 13.69 13.22 13.62 15.55 12.46 13.60 11.47
PM10 PRD 66.7 66.3 67.6 63.8 58.4 57.7 60.1 57.6 69.9
Vic-PRD 57.2 58.0 59.6 54.5 49.6 50.8 49.3 42.6 50.7
Guangdong 61.0 62.0 63.0 58.5 53.4 53.7 54.0 50.0 60.0
NO2 PRD 38.7 42.8 42.4 40.0 39.3 40.2 38.3 36.1 41.0
Vic-PRD 20.8 19.1 17.4 16.3 18.4 17.8 17.8 17.6 20.2
Guangdong 28.0 29.0 28.1 26.5 27.4 27.4 27.0 26.0 30.0
SO2 PRD 34.1 38.2 35.7 30.9 27.6 25.9 23.3 19.1 21.1
Vic-PRD 21.3 23.3 21.5 20.2 19.2 18.7 17.8 14.1 16.6
Guangdong 27.0 30.0 28.0 23.0 23.0 22.0 20.0 17.0 19.0
Tab.1  Annual mean values of AOD, NO2 VCD, SO2 VCD, HCHO VCD, as well as those of in situ PM10, NO2, SO2 for PRD, Vic-PRD and Guangdong Province
PRD vicinity
meana Stdb R2c rated pe mean Std R2 rate p
AOD 0.62 0.06 0.46 −2.2% 0.31 0.41 0.04 0.62 −2.6% 0.06
PM10in-situ 63.11 4.75 0.11 −0.8% – 52.46 5.36 0.68 −2.8% 0.06
NO2VCD 7.72 0.76 0.69 −2.7% 0.06 3.10 0.27 0.05 – –
NO2in-situ 39.88 2.08 0.17 – – 18.36 1.42 0.02 – –
SO2VCD 0.33 0.12 0.86 −8.5% 0.06 0.13 0.03 0.10 – –
SO2in-situ 28.43 6.71 0.89 −6.8% 0.06 19.17 2.80 0.82 −4.3% 0.06
Tab.2  Basic information of variation trends of the satellite retrieved AOD, NO2 VCD and SO2, as well as that of the in-situ measurements of PM10, NO2 and SO2 in PRD and Vic-PRD over the period of 2005 to 2013
Fig.5  Normalized inter-annual variations of satellite retrievals and relevant in-situ measurements of aerosol (a), NO2 (b) and SO2(c), in both PRD (upper panel) and Vic-PRD (bottom panel) from 2005 to 2013. The emission amount of SO2 and NOx, as well as the total energy consumption in Guangdong Province is also presented (d)
Fig.6  Variation trends of satellite retrieved AOD, NO2, SO2 and HCHO in different cities in PRD (e.g., Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, and Shenzhen) and in Vic PRD (e.g., Shaoguan and Yunfu)
Fig.7  Same as Figure 6 but among PRD and other metropolitan clusters (MCs), namely Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (JJJ), Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Cheng-Yu (CY) regions
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[1] Xuemei WANG,Weihua CHEN,Duohong CHEN,Zhiyong WU,Qi Fan. Long-term trends of fine particulate matter and chemical composition in the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone (PRDEZ), China[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2016, 10(1): 53-62.
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