Estimation of the direct and indirect impacts of fireworks on the physicochemical characteristics of atmospheric PM<sub>10</sub> and PM<sub>2.5</sub>

Abstract

Abstract. To quantify the total, direct and indirect impacts of fireworks individually, size-resolved PM samples were collected before, during and after a Chinese folk festival (Chinese New Year) in a megacity in China. Through chemical analysis and morphological characterisation, a strong influence of fireworks on the physicochemical characteristics of PM 10 and PM 2.5 was observed. The concentrations of many species exhibited an increasing trend during the heavy-firework period, especially for K + , Mg 2+ and Cr; the results of the non-sea-salt ions demonstrated an anthropogenic influence on K + and Mg 2+ . Then, source apportionment was conducted by receptor models and peak analysis (PA). The total influence of the fireworks was quantified by positive matrix factorisation (PMF), showing that the fireworks contributed higher fractions (23.40 % for PM 10 and 29.66 % for PM 2.5 ) during the heavy-firework period than during the light-firework period (4.28 % for PM 10 and 7.18 % for PM 2.5 ). The profiles of the total fireworks obtained by two independent methods (PMF and peak analysis) were consistent, with higher abundances of K + , Al, Si, Ca and organic carbon (OC). Finally, the individual contributions of the direct and indirect impacts of fireworks were quantified by chemical mass balance (CMB). The percentage contributions of resuspended dust, biomass combustion and direct fireworks were 36.8 ± 8.37 %, 14.1 ± 2.82 % and 44.4 ± 8.26 %, respectively, for PM 10 and 34.9 ± 4.19 %, 16.6 ± 3.05 % and 52.5 ± 9.69 %, respectively, for PM 2.5 , in terms of the total fireworks. The quantification of the total, direct and indirect impacts of fireworks in the ambient PM gives a original contribution for understanding the physicochemical characteristics and mechanisms of such high-intensity anthropogenic activities.

Chemical Characteristics of PM2.5 during 2015 Spring Festival in Beijing, China

“…The EF of crustal elements remained stable during the sampling period, which is due to these elements being largely from natural sources (e.g., soil and construction materials) and rarely transported into the atmosphere, hence, their contribution to PM on haze days is limited. Stable weather conditions and high RH are also important factors (Tian et al, 2014b). b.…”

“…Burning fireworks releases huge amounts of gaseous pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) (Huang et al, 2012), nitrogen oxides (NO x ), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), and carbon monoxide (CO) (Wang et al, 2007;Vecchi et al, 2008;Huang et al, 2012), as well as suspended particles containing water-soluble ions, organic/elemental carbon and trace metals (Drewnick et al, 2006;Sarkar et al, 2010;Jiang et al, 2015;Kong et al, 2015). It has been noted before that firework displays could lead to a sharp increase in PM 2.5 concentrations (Wang et al, 2007;Feng et al, 2012;Tsai et al, 2012;Han et al, 2014) and generates haze pollution within a short time (Sarkar et al, 2010;Tian et al, 2014b). In China, high-intensity firework displays mainly occur during festivals or special events, especially the Spring Festival.…”

“…Meanwhile, fireworks burning becomes an important pollution source during the Spring Festival. There have been some studies on the characteristics of fireworks pollution, including its impacts on fine and coarse particles (Chang et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2012;Li et al, 2013;Jing et al, 2014;Zhao et al, 2014;Jiang et al, 2015;Lin et al, 2016), source apportionment (Feng et al, 2012;Tian et al, 2014b) and human health risk assessment Shi et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014).…”

The impacts of firework burning at the Chinese Spring Festival on air quality: insights of tracers, source evolution and aging processes

“…Atmospheric pollutants emitted from firework burning (FW) at festivals or special celebration events around the world have recently received wide attention, such as Guy Fawkes night in the UK (Allan et al, 2010;Godri et al, 2010), Pyronale ® 2009 and Pyromusikale ® (Dutschke et al, 2011), Montréal international fireworks competition (Joly et al, 2010), New Year's celebrations (Williams et al, 2005;Drewnick et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2010;Do et al, 2012;Feng et al, 2012;Jiang et al, 2014;Jing et al, 2014;Tian et al, 2014;Ye et al, 2014), Diwali (Godri et al, 2010), Las Fallas in Valencia (Moreno et al, 2007), the new Millennium celebration in Germany (Wehner et al, 2000), 2006 FIFA World Cup (Vecchi et al, 2008) and Lantern Festival (Do et al, 2012;Tsai et al, 2012). Besides the direct possible dangers like exposure to sound pressure (Dutschke et al, 2011) or firework-related injuries (Do et al, 2012), their burning results in massive quantities of pollutants, leading to degradation of air quality (Wang et al, 2007;Sarkar et al, 2010;Dutschke et al, 2011;Do et al, 2012;Feng et al, S. Kong et al: The impacts of firework burning at the Chinese Spring Festival 2012; Tsai et al, 2012;Jiang et al, 2014;Jing et al, 2014;Tian et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014) and raising serious human health concerns (Godri et al, 2010;Do et al, 2012). Evidence suggests that inhalation of fumes containing high levels of specific elements such as chlorine can cause mucosal irritation and acute respiratory distress syndrome…”

“…China is the largest firework producing country in the world (Tian et al, 2014). For the Chinese New Year day (CNY, in the Spring Festival (SF) on January or February of lunar Chinese calendar, high-profile FW events occurred at midnight of the CNY's Eve in national scale, from small villages to megacities.…”