Long-term characterization of roadside air pollutants in urban Beijing and associated public health implications.

Road traffic constitutes a major source of air pollutants in urban Beijing, which are responsible for substantial premature mortality. A series of policies and regulations has led to appreciable traffic emission reductions in recent decades. To shed light on long-term (2014-2020) roadside air pollution and assess the efficacy of traffic control measures and their effects on public health, this study quantitatively evaluated changes in the concentrations of six key air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO and O3) measured at 5 roadside and 12 urban background monitoring stations in Beijing. We found that the annual mean concentrations of these air pollutants were remarkably reduced by 47%-71% from 2014 to 2020, while the concurrent ozone concentration increased by 17.4%. In addition, we observed reductions in the roadside increments in PM2.5, NO2, SO2 and CO of 54.8%, 29.8%, 20.6%, and 59.1%, respectively, indicating the high effectiveness of new vehicle standard (China V and VI) implementation in Beijing. The premature deaths due to traffic emissions were estimated to be 8379 and 1908 cases in 2014 and 2020, respectively. The impact of NO2 from road traffic relative to PM2.5 on premature mortality was comparable to that of traffic-related PM2.5 emissions. The public health effect of SO2 originating from traffic was markedly lower than that of PM2.5. The results indicated that a reduction in traffic-related NO2 could likely yield the greatest benefits for public health.

Characteristics of ambient ammonia and its effects on particulate ammonium in winter of urban Beijing, China.

To understand the characteristics of winter fine aerosol pollution in Beijing, we conducted continuous measurements of the atmospheric trace gas ammonia (NH3), PM2.5, and inorganic ions in PM2.5 at an urban site in Beijing from February 13 to March 17, 2015. The hourly average concentration of NH3 throughout the campaign was 15.4 ± 17.5 ppb. NH3 concentrations correlated well with NH4+ in PM2.5, indicating the dominant precursor role of NH3 on NH4+ formation. The diurnal profile indicated an increase in NH3 concentrations during the morning rush hours, which was likely due to vehicle emissions. The mean ammonium conversion ratio (NHR) was 0.26, with the highest value of 0.32 in the afternoon. Elevated NHR, nitrate oxidation ratio (NOR), and NH4+ coincided with the significant increase in O3 levels in the afternoon, indicating the large daytime formation of NH4NO3 via photochemical reactions. Moreover, higher NHR values occurred under higher relative humidity (RH >60%) and lower temperature (0-10 °C). NHR increased during the nighttime and correlated well with RH, indicating the dominant role of heterogeneous reactions on gas-particle partitioning. The sulfate oxidation ratio (SOR) and NOR showed positive correlations with RH, which suggests that the conversions of SO2 to SO42- and NO2 to NO3- were sensitive to changes in RH. The sustained increase in SO42- concentrations at RH >60% suggests that RH had a higher influence on SO42- formation than on NO3- formation. As the sole precursor of NH4+, NH3 significantly enhanced daytime NH4NO3 formation via homogeneous gas-phase reactions and also promoted sulfate formation via both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions. Moreover, the back trajectory results inferred a high contribution of southwestern air masses to atmospheric NH3 and NH4+ aerosol variations in Beijing. The result suggests the need for controlling the vehicle emissions to reduce the high levels of NH3 and alleviate PM2.5 pollution in winter in Beijing.