Comparison of Emissions Inventories of Anthropogenic Air Pollutants in China

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions have been increasing rapidly in China. Modelers use emissions inventories to assess temporal and spatial distribution of these emissions to estimate their impacts on regional and global air quality. However, large uncertainties exist in emissions estimates and assessing discrepancies in these inventories is essential for better understanding of the trends in air pollution over China. We compare five different emissions inventories estimating emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NO<sub><i>x</i></sub>), sulfur dioxide (SO<sub>2</sub>), particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 um or less (PM<sub>10</sub>) from China. The emissions inventories analyzed in this paper include Regional Emissions inventory in ASia v2.1 (REAS); Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC); Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research v4.2 (EDGAR); the inventory by Yu Zhao (ZHAO); and the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS). We focus on the period between 2000 and 2008 during which the Chinese economic activities have more than doubled. In addition to the national total, we also analyzed emissions from four source sectors (industry, transportation, power, and residential) and within seven regions in China (East, North, Northeast, Central, Southwest, Northwest, and South) and found that large disagreements (~ seven fold) exist among the five inventories at disaggregated levels. These discrepancies lead to differences of 67 ug/m<sup>3</sup>, 15 ppbv, and 470 ppbv for monthly mean PM<sub>10</sub>, O<sub>3</sub>, and CO, respectively, in modelled regional concentrations in China. We also find that MEIC inventory emissions estimates create a VOC-limited environment that produces much lower O<sub>3</sub> mixing ratio in the East and Central China compared to the simulations using REAS and EDGAR estimates. Our results illustrate that a better understanding of Chinese emissions at more disaggregated levels is essential for finding an effective mitigation measure for reducing national and regional air pollution in China.</p>

Evaluation of anthropogenic emissions of black carbon from East Asia in six inventories: constraints from model simulations and surface observations on Fukue Island, Japan

“…This is similar to the results of previous studies that compared the emissions of other air pollutants between inventories. Saikawa et al 8 compared the emissions of air pollutants (CO, SO 2 , NO x , and PM 10 ) from China among five inventories and revealed that the discrepancies for each sector were larger than those for the total emissions. Li et al 9 showed that differences at the sectorial level were higher than those of the total estimates by comparing SO 2 and NO x emissions over China in the ECLIPSE and MIX inventories.…”

“…However, differences among emission inventories and how the variations affect model simulations have not been investigated well. Recently, comparisons between emission inventories have been conducted for the emissions of air pollutants such as NO x , SO 2 , CO, and PM 10 from China [8][9][10] , but BC was not examined in these Page 2 of 37 Environmental Science: Atmospheres Environmental Science: Atmospheres Accepted Manuscript 3 studies. Kondo et al 11 evaluated BC emissions from China using CTMs and BC measurements at Cape Hedo on Okinawa Island in the East China Sea.…”

Ensemble Predictions of Air Pollutants in China in 2013 for Health Effects Studies Using WRF/CMAQ Modeling System with Four Emission Inventories

“…The inventory contains monthly emissions of pollutants from different source categories. Saikawa et al (2016) compared the major features of different anthropogenic emission inventories for China. Detailed information regarding these inventories can be found in the publications presenting them.…”

“…This technique has been widely used in the climate predictions (Murphy et al, 2004;Tebaldi and Knutti, 2007), and recently adopted in air quality predictions (Delle Monache et al, 2006;Huijnen et al, 2010). A recent study has compared a few anthropogenic emission inventories in China during 2000(Saikawa et al, 2016, but detailed evaluation of air quality model results based on these inventories for over an extended time period have not been performed. The methods to utilize the strength of different emission inventories to get improved air quality predictions for China have not been reported in the literature.…”