The control of anthropogenic emissions contributed to 80 % of the decrease in PMsub2.5/sub concentrations in Beijing from 2013 to 2017

摘要

With the completion of the Beijing Five-year Clean Air Action Plan by the end of 2017, the annual mean PM2.5 concentration in Beijing dropped dramatically to 58.0 μg m?3 in 2017 from 89.5 μg m?3 in 2013. However, controversies exist to argue that favourable meteorological conditions in 2017 were the major driver for such a rapid decrease in PM2.5 concentrations. To comprehensively evaluate this 5-year plan, we employed a Kolmogorov–Zurbenko (KZ) filter and WRF-CMAQ (Weather Research and Forecasting and the Community Multi-scale Air Quality) to quantify the relative contribution of meteorological conditions and the control of anthropogenic emissions to PM2.5 reduction in Beijing from 2013 to 2017. For these 5 years, the relative contribution of emission reduction to the decrease in PM2.5 concentrations calculated by KZ filtering and WRF-CMAQ was 80.6 % and 78.6 % respectively. KZ filtering suggested that short-term variations in meteorological and emission conditions contributed majorly to rapid changes in PM2.5 concentrations in Beijing. WRF-CMAQ revealed that the relative contribution of local and regional emission reduction to the PM2.5 decrease in Beijing was 53.7 % and 24.9 % respectively. For local emission-reduction measures, the regulation of coal boilers, increasing use of clean fuels for residential use and industrial restructuring contributed 20.1 %, 17.4 % and 10.8 % to PM2.5 reduction respectively. Both models suggested that the control of anthropogenic emissions accounted for around 80 % of the PM2.5 reduction in Beijing, indicating that emission reduction was crucial for air quality enhancement in Beijing from 2013 to 2017. Consequently, such a long-term air quality clean plan should be continued in the following years to further reduce PM2.5 concentrations in Beijing.