Exploring the relationship between air pollution and meteorological conditions in China under environmental governance

Abstract

Extensive studies have been carried out on the impact of human activities on air pollution, but systematic investigation on the relationship between air pollutant and meteorological conditions is still insufficient, especially in the context of China’s site scale and recent comprehensive environmental pollution control. Here, we used a spatial interpolation technology to establish a set of data sets of pollutants and meteorological elements that are spatially matched at 896 stations in China to reveal the air pollutant-meteorological interactions between 2014 and 2019. We found that air pollution and meteorological elements have obvious seasonal and regional characteristics. Over the last few years, the concentration of most air pollutants in China has dropped significantly except for O 3 . The increase in O 3 concentration was closely related to the decrease of particulate matter and NO 2 concentration. The concentration of most air pollutants was affected by meteorological conditions, but the level of impact depended on the type of pollutants and varied across regions. The concentration of air pollutants at most stations was significantly negatively correlated with wind speed, precipitation and relative humidity, but positively correlated with atmospheric pressure. As the latitude increases, the impact of temperature on the concentration of air pollutants becomes more obvious. To effectively control air pollution, it is further urgent to reveal the relationship between air pollution and meteorological conditions based on long-term daily or real-time data.

Assessing the Relationship between COVID-19, Air Quality, and Meteorological Variables: A Case Study of Dhaka City in Bangladesh

“…Similarly, a significant negative correlation was also observed between wind speed and atmospheric pressure at lag-0 to 21. These results are found to be consistent with the results of other studies (Liu et al, 2020;Hoang and Tran, 2021).…”

“…In addition, associations among and between air pollutants and meteorological variables are presented in Table 4. It is apparent that meteorological conditions influence air pollutants' concentration over a particular region (Liu et al, 2020). In our study, NO2 showed a significant positive correlation with PM2.5 at lag-0 to 21 and a significant negative correlation with CO and O3 at lag-0.…”

Health, Transport and the Environment: The Impacts of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Pollution

“…For NO 2 , in addition to temperature, atmospheric pressure has also been identified as one of the leading meteorological factors for changes in pollutant concentration in the eastern coastal and northeastern regions. Relative humidity also had a significant impact on NO 2 concentration in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (38). These results are consistent with previous studies (39,40).…”

Does Environment has any role in recovery from COVID-19 pandemic? A case study from India.

“…Considering those cognizance along with the observations throughout the study, it may be opined that the complete lockdown with strict regulations could substantially decrease the pollution levels, and so the dissemination rate of COVID-19 too. The pre-eminence of weather parameters on air quality is indubitable and evinced globally (Bhaskar and Mehta, 2010;Fisher, 2002;Yansui Liu et al, 2020e;Panofsky and Prasad, 1967;Qin et al, 2020;Seo et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2015), hence its signi cant association with COVID-19 dissemination during a year-long period over India has been certainly revealed through the present study. We also postulate that amelioration from this pandemic could be viable, preferably in a freshened (less polluted) environment with non-scorching weather conditions.…”