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Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air...
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Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Quality".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019) | Viewed by 28198

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Naděžda Zíková

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Environmental Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Interests: atmospheric aerosol; meteorology; number size distributions; new particle formation; aerosol-cloud interactions
Dr. Mauro Masiol

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Patras, Greece
Interests: air pollution; atmospheric aerosol; exposure assessment; source apportionment; long-term trends

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Air pollution is decreasing in many developed countries reflecting the implementation of legislation and regulations, the application of increasingly stringent emissions standards, improved abatement technologies, and other mitigation strategies. However, air pollution is generally increasing in developing countries following demographic and economic growth and energy demand, while there is still a lack of policies for air pollution control.

Under this view, a today major research challenge is to understand if the air pollution trends are positive or negative feedbacks of specific mitigation measures, the synergy of implementation of multiple policies at different spatial scales rather than the consequence of the recent economic recession, or the effects of climate change.

This Special Issue focuses on air quality trends occurring in recent years with particular attention for the anthropogenic factors driving the tendencies, e.g., changes in emission scenarios, population growth, industrial development or deindustrialization, delocalization of production or international relocation, economy recession, etc.

Analyses of long-term datasets from routine monitoring networks or from campaign-based studies are welcomed, as well as the development/testing of original chemometric methods for investigating temporal and spatial changes in air pollution. The quantification of trends should be analyzed and discussed in view of the potential effects of past/present/planned mitigation measures, economic or population growth, or other factors that may had evident effect on the changes in air quality. We particularly invite papers on the following topics:

  • Long-term trends (at least a decade-long) in the concentration of gaseous air pollutants or particulate matter (mass/composition/number/size distributions).
  • Effects of anthropogenic factors driving the changes of local or regional air quality.
  • Effects of low-emission zones on air quality.
  • Comparison of air quality pre- and post- 2009 economic recession.
  • Analysis of trends due to local drivers as well as due to regional or transboundary transports of polluted air masses.

If in doubt about a topic suitability for this Special Issue, potential authors are invited to consult any idea with the Guest Editors.

Dr. Naděžda Zíková
Dr. Mauro Masiol
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • PM2.5
  • Long-term measurement
  • Technology changes
  • Economic recession
  • Trends
  • Low-emission zones

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1922 KiB  
Article
Influence of Individual Household Heating on PM2.5 Concentration in a Rural Settlement
by Tomasz Olszowski
Atmosphere 2019, 10(12), 782; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10120782 - 5 Dec 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2079
Abstract
This article reports the results of research on the concentration of particulate matter (PM) in two places in one village named Kotórz Mały (Poland). The main point of the research was to check the influence scale of different low-emission source forms as components [...] Read more.
This article reports the results of research on the concentration of particulate matter (PM) in two places in one village named Kotórz Mały (Poland). The main point of the research was to check the influence scale of different low-emission source forms as components of the anthropogenic factor driving the changes in local air quality. Measurements were made over five cold seasons. To investigate the dust concentrations, the gravimetric and optical method was used. The weather conditions were measured with portable weather stations. It was found that the character of individual heating systems had a major influence on local air quality. The presence of a permanent state of the troposphere and temperature inversion led to the inhibition of pollution dispersion processes and significant local changes, exceeding the recommended PM2.5 concentrations limit. The effects of policy still don’t influence air quality trends in the Polish village. The main problem of high concentrations of PM2.5 is the old generation of individual heating systems and the lack of significant support from local and national authorities. For the terms considered and the period of observation, meteorological measurements can be considered a sufficient foundation for the estimation of the occurrence of worrying conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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16 pages, 3580 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Trends in PAH Concentrations and Sources at Rural Background Site in Central Europe
by Radek Lhotka, Petra Pokorná and Naděžda Zíková
Atmosphere 2019, 10(11), 687; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10110687 - 7 Nov 2019
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3768
Abstract
An increased burden due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) is a long-term air quality problem in Central and Eastern Europe. Extensive PAH monitoring has been implemented at the National Atmospheric Observatory Košetice (NAOK), a rural background site in the Czech Republic, as a [...] Read more.
An increased burden due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) is a long-term air quality problem in Central and Eastern Europe. Extensive PAH monitoring has been implemented at the National Atmospheric Observatory Košetice (NAOK), a rural background site in the Czech Republic, as a representative for Central Europe. Data from NAOK are used for evaluation of PAH concentration trends and source apportionment. In total, concentrations of 14 PAHs in particulate matter (PM10) and in the gas phase between 2006 and 2016 were evaluated. The highest concentrations were measured at the beginning of the study period in 2006. Mean annual concentrations of benzo(a)pyrene, for example, showed a weak, however statistically significant decreasing trend. The positive matrix factorization (PMF) was used to determine the sources of PAHs at NAOK, with three factors resolved. The probable origin areas of PMF factors were identified by the conditional bivariate probability function (CBPF) and the potential source contribution function (PSCF) methods. The NAOK is affected by local sources of PAHs, as well as by regional and long-range transport. The PAH concentrations correlate negatively with industrial production and traffic intensity. High PAH emissions have been linked to local heating, suggesting that the planned replacement of obsolete combustion sources in the households could improve the overall air quality situation, not only with respect to PAHs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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28 pages, 3848 KiB  
Article
Recent Trends in Maintenance Costs for Façades Due to Air Pollution in the Oslo Quadrature, Norway
by Terje Grøntoft
Atmosphere 2019, 10(9), 529; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10090529 - 8 Sep 2019
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4328 | Correction
Abstract
This study assesses changes since 1980 in the maintenance cost of the façades of the historical 17th to 19th century buildings of the Oslo Quadrature, Norway, due to atmospheric chemical wear, including the influence of air pollution. Bottom up estimations by exposure–response functions [...] Read more.
This study assesses changes since 1980 in the maintenance cost of the façades of the historical 17th to 19th century buildings of the Oslo Quadrature, Norway, due to atmospheric chemical wear, including the influence of air pollution. Bottom up estimations by exposure–response functions for an SO2 dominated situation reported in the literature for 1979 and 1995 were compared with calculations for the present (2002–2014) multi-pollutant situation. The present maintenance cost, relative to the total façade area, due to atmospheric wear and soiling was found to be about 1.6 Euro/m2 per year. The exposure to local air pollution, mainly particulate matter and NOx gases, contributed to 0.6 Euro/m2 (38%), of which the cost due to wear of renderings was about 0.4 Euro/m2 (22%), that due to the cleaning of glass was 0.2 Euro/m2 (11%), and that due to wear of other façade materials was 0.07 Euro/m2 (5%). The maintenance cost due to the atmospheric wear was found to be about 3.5%, and that due to the local air pollution about 1.1% of the total municipal building maintenance costs. The present (2002–2014) maintenance costs, relative to the areas of the specific materials, due to atmospheric wear are probably the highest for painted steel surfaces, about 8–10 Euro/m2, then about 2 Euro/m2 for façade cleaning and the maintenance of rendering, and down to 0.3 Euro/m2 for the maintenance of copper roofs. These costs should be adjusted with the importance of the wear relative to other reasons for the façade maintenance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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29 pages, 4618 KiB  
Article
Impact of Urban Growth on Air Quality in Indian Cities Using Hierarchical Bayesian Approach
by Prakhar Misra, Ryoichi Imasu and Wataru Takeuchi
Atmosphere 2019, 10(9), 517; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10090517 - 3 Sep 2019
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4448
Abstract
Several studies have found rising ambient particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations in urban areas across developing countries. For setting mitigation policies source-contribution is needed, which is calculated mostly through computationally intensive chemical transport models or manpower intensive source apportionment studies. Data based [...] Read more.
Several studies have found rising ambient particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) concentrations in urban areas across developing countries. For setting mitigation policies source-contribution is needed, which is calculated mostly through computationally intensive chemical transport models or manpower intensive source apportionment studies. Data based approach that use remote sensing datasets can help reduce this challenge, specially in developing countries which lack spatially and temporally dense air quality monitoring networks. Our objective was identifying relative contribution of urban emission sources to monthly PM 2.5 ambient concentrations and assessing whether urban expansion can explain rise of PM 2.5 ambient concentration from 2001 to 2015 in 15 Indian cities. We adapted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) emission framework in a land use regression (LUR) model to estimate concentrations by statistically modeling the impact of urban growth on aerosol concentrations with the help of remote sensing datasets. Contribution to concentration from six key sources (residential, industrial, commercial, crop fires, brick kiln and vehicles) was estimated by inverse distance weighting of their emissions in the land-use regression model. A hierarchical Bayesian approach was used to account for the random effects due to the heterogeneous emitting sources in the 15 cities. Long-term ambient PM 2.5 concentration from 2001 to 2015, was represented by a indicator R (varying from 0 to 100), decomposed from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) derived AOD (aerosol optical depth) and angstrom exponent datasets. The model was trained on annual-level spatial land-use distribution and technological advancement data and the monthly-level emission activity of 2001 and 2011 over each location to predict monthly R. The results suggest that above the central portion of a city, concentration due to primary PM 2.5 emission is contributed mostly by residential areas (35.0 ± 11.9%), brick kilns (11.7 ± 5.2%) and industries (4.2 ± 2.8%). The model performed moderately for most cities (median correlation for out of time validation was 0.52), especially when assumed changes in seasonal emissions for each source reflected actual seasonal changes in emissions. The results suggest the need for policies focusing on emissions from residential regions and brick kilns. The relative order of the contributions estimated by this study is consistent with other recent studies and a contribution of up to 42.8 ± 14.1% is attributed to the formation of secondary aerosol, long-range transport and unaccounted sources in surrounding regions. The strength of this approach is to be able to estimate the contribution of urban growth to primary aerosols statistically with a relatively low computation cost compared to the more accurate but computationally expensive chemical transport based models. This remote sensing based approach is especially useful in locations without emission inventory. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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10 pages, 24783 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Trend Analysis of PM2.5 Concentration in China, 1999–2016
by Jianghua Zhao, Xuezhi Wang, Hongqing Song, Yi Du, Wenjuan Cui and Yuanchun Zhou
Atmosphere 2019, 10(8), 461; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080461 - 12 Aug 2019
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3617
Abstract
China is experiencing severe PM2.5 (fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 μg or smaller) pollution problem. Little is known, however, about how the increasing concentration trend is spatially distributed, nor whether there are some areas that experience a stable or decreasing [...] Read more.
China is experiencing severe PM2.5 (fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 μg or smaller) pollution problem. Little is known, however, about how the increasing concentration trend is spatially distributed, nor whether there are some areas that experience a stable or decreasing concentration trend. Managers and policymakers require such information to make strategic decisions and monitor progress towards management objectives. Here, we present a pixel-based linear trend analysis of annual PM2.5 concentration variation in China during the period 1999–2016, and our results provide guidance about where to prioritize management efforts and affirm the importance of controlling coal energy consumption. We show that 87.9% of the whole China area had an increasing trend. The drastic increasing trends of PM2.5 concentration during the last 18 years in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, Shandong province, and the Three Northeastern Provinces are discussed. Furthermore, by exploring regional PM2.5 pollution, we find that Tarim Basin endures a high PM2.5 concentration, and this should have some relationship with oil exploration. The relationship between PM2.5 pollution and energy consumption is also discussed. Not only energy structure reconstruction should be repeatedly emphasized, the amount of coal burned should be strictly controlled. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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21 pages, 1662 KiB  
Article
Analysis of the Air Quality and the Effect of Governance Policies in China’s Pearl River Delta, 2015–2018
by Hao Gao, Weixin Yang, Yunpeng Yang and Guanghui Yuan
Atmosphere 2019, 10(7), 412; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10070412 - 18 Jul 2019
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 5733
Abstract
The evaluation of China’s air pollution and the effectiveness of its governance policies is currently a topic of general concern in the academic community. We have improved the traditional evaluation method to construct a comprehensive air quality assessment model based on China’s major [...] Read more.
The evaluation of China’s air pollution and the effectiveness of its governance policies is currently a topic of general concern in the academic community. We have improved the traditional evaluation method to construct a comprehensive air quality assessment model based on China’s major air pollutants. Using the daily air pollutant data of 2015–2018, we calculated and analyzed the monthly air quality of nine cities in the Pearl River Delta of China, and conducted a comparative study on the effect of the air pollution control policies of the cities in the Pearl River Delta. We found that the air quality control policies in those nine cities were not consistent. Specifically, the pollution control policies of Guangzhou and Foshan have achieved more than 20% improvement. The pollution control policies of Dongguan and Zhaoqing have also achieved more than 10% improvement. However, due to the relative lag of the formulation and implementation of air pollution control policies, the air quality of Jiangmen, Zhuhai and Zhongshan has declined. Based on the analysis of the air quality assessment results and the effects of governance policies in each city during the study period, we propose suggestions for further improvement of the effectiveness of air pollution control policies in the region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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31 pages, 4284 KiB  
Article
Cleaning Costs for European Sheltered White Painted Steel and Modern Glass Surfaces Due to Air Pollution Since the Year 2000
by Terje Grøntoft, Aurélie Verney-Carron and Johan Tidblad
Atmosphere 2019, 10(4), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10040167 - 29 Mar 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3719
Abstract
This paper reports estimated maintenance-cleaning costs, cost savings and cleaning interval increases for structural surfaces and windows in Europe obtainable by reducing the air pollution. Methodology and data from the ICP-materials project were used. The average present (2018) cleaning costs for sheltered white [...] Read more.
This paper reports estimated maintenance-cleaning costs, cost savings and cleaning interval increases for structural surfaces and windows in Europe obtainable by reducing the air pollution. Methodology and data from the ICP-materials project were used. The average present (2018) cleaning costs for sheltered white painted steel surfaces and modern glass due to air pollution over background, was estimated to be ~2.5 Euro/m2∙year. Hypothetical 50% reduction in the air pollution was found to give savings in these cleaning costs of ~1.5 Euro/m2∙year. Observed reduction in the air pollution, from 2002–2005 until 2011–2014, have probably increased the cleaning interval for white painted steel with ~100% (from 12 to 24 years), representing reductions in the single intervention cleaning costs from 7 to 4%/year (= % of one cleaning investment, per year during the cleaning interval) and for the modern glass with ~65% (from 0.85 to 1.3 years), representing reductions in the cleaning cost from 124 to 95%/year. The cleaning cost reductions, obtainable by 50% reduction in air pollution, would have been ~3 %/year for white painted steel and ~60%/year for the modern glass, representing ~100 and 50% additional cleaning interval increases. These potential cleaning cost savings are significantly higher than previously reported for the weathering of Portland limestone ornament and zinc monuments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Policy, Mitigation Measures and Economic Recession on Air Quality Trends)
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