The impact of ship emissions on PM 2.5 and the deposition of nitrogen and sulfur in Yangtze River Delta, China

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2019-02, Vol.649, p.1609
• Main Authors: Chen, Dongsheng, Tian, Xiaolei, Lang, Jianlei, Zhou, Ying, Li, Yue, Guo, Xiurui, Wang, Wenlin, Liu, Bo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.08.313

Ship emissions contribute significantly to the deterioration of air quality, while their impacts on ambient PM and depositions have not been comprehensively evaluated. This is especially true for China because it has a long coastline, busy shipping routes and many large ports. To fill this gap, this study applied the SMOKE/WRF/CMAQ modeling system to quantifying the impacts of ships on PM compositions, annual and seasonal contribution to PM as well as the wet and dry deposition of nitrogen and sulfur compounds over the land areas in YRD region for 2014. The results showed that 4.0% of annual PM concentrations over the land areas could be explained by ship emissions and the largest contribution could reach up to 35.0% in port areas. Temporally, the contribution to PM exhibited an obviously seasonal variation. The highest contribution was predicted in autumn (6.2%), followed by summer (5.4%), spring (3.6%) and winter (1.2%) for the land areas. Spatially, the contribution reached up to 13.6% along the coastline and dropped to 2.1% 300 km inland. As for the impacts on PM components, the primary components were relatively small and increased mainly along the shipping routes and the Yangtze River, whereas the secondary components played a more important role in both water and land areas. The sulfur deposition due to ship emissions was occurred generally along the shipping routes and was dominated by the dry SO deposition. The nitrogen depositions, on the contrary, was observed not only along the shipping routes but also extend to wide land areas. Further investigation revealed that ship emissions have caused an evident increase of dry nitrogen deposition in NO and HNO , while a slight decrease in NH over YRD region. These results indicated that comprehensive regulations of ship emissions are required considering their adverse effects on the ambient concentration of PM and the deposition of sulfur and nitrogen.