Contributions of domestic sources to PM2.5 in South Korea

• Published in: Atmospheric environment (1994) 2022-10, Vol.287, p.119273, Article 119273
• Main Authors: Kumar, Naresh, Johnson, Jeremiah, Yarwood, Greg, Woo, Jung-Hun, Kim, Younha, Park, Rokjin J., Jeong, Jaein I., Kang, Suji, Chun, Sungnam, Knipping, Eladio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: air; air quality; ammonia; CAMx; Emissions controls; environment; issues and policy; Japan; Korea air quality; meteorology; North Korea; Particulate matter (PM2.5); PSAT; Source contributions; South Korea; weather
• ISSN: 1352-2310; 1873-2844
• DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119273

We use the CAMx (Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions) chemical transport model (CTM) with 4-km horizontal resolution over the Korean Peninsula to investigate source contributions to PM2.5 in Korea from domestic and upwind sources. We modeled 2015 and 2016 to account for meteorological variation with Korean emissions from the Clean Air Policy Supporting System (CAPSS), meteorology from WRF (Weather, Research, and Forecasting) model, and regional boundary concentrations from the GEOS-Chem global CTM. The CAMx particulate source apportionment technology (PSAT) provided PM2.5 source contributions from 5 source sectors and 6 geographic regions within Korea, international sources, and boundary concentrations. PM2.5 contributions from outside Korea are important with boundary concentrations plus the “other” emissions sector (includes marine shipping, agricultural ammonia, and international emissions from North Korea and Japan within the CAMx domain) contributing 67% of annual average PM2.5 in Seoul in 2016 and 71% in 2015. The boundary concentrations contributed between 30% and 50% of PM2.5 at different Korean cities with contributions generally lower in 2016 than in 2015. For Korean sources, PM2.5 contributions from Electric Generating Unit (EGU) emissions were smaller than contributions from mobile and industrial emissions sources although there is considerable day-to-day variation in contributions. On an annual basis in 2016, the “other” category contributed 25% followed by mobile sources at 23%, industrial sources at 6%, and EGU sources at 3%. For 2015, the contributions were similar. Focusing on March when PM2.5 concentrations were higher than other months, the contributions from other, mobile, industrial, and EGUs were 21%, 18%, 4%, and 4%, respectively in 2016. For 2015, contributions from these four categories were 18%, 15%, 3%, and 3%, respectively. •A regional air quality model estimated domestic contributions from different sources and regions to PM2.5 in Korea.•Boundary conditions (includes contributions from China) contributed 30% to 50% towards PM2.5 in major cities in Korea.•Among the domestic sources, mobile sources contributed the most towards PM2.5 in Korea followed by the industrial sources.•Our results are qualitatively similar to previous source attribution studies of PM2.5 in Korea.