Contribution and uncertainty of sectorial and regional emissions to regional and global PM_2.5 health impacts

Abstract

In this work we couple the HTAP_v2.2 global air pollutant emission inventory with the global source receptor model TM5-FASST to evaluate the relative contributions of the major anthropogenic emission sources (power generation, industry, ground transport, residential, agriculture and international shipping) to air quality and human health in 2010. We focus on particulate matter (PM) concentrations because of the relative importance of PM2.5 emissions in populated areas and the well-documented cumulative negative effects on human health. We estimate that in 2010, depending on the region, annual averaged anthropogenic PM2.5 concentrations varied between ca. 1 and 40 µg m−3, with the highest concentrations observed in China and India, and lower concentrations in Europe and North America. The relative contribution of anthropogenic emission sources to PM2.5 concentrations varies between the regions. European PM pollution is mainly influenced by the agricultural and residential sectors, while the major contributing sectors to PM pollution in Asia and the emerging economies are the power generation, industrial and residential sectors. We also evaluate the emission sectors and emission regions in which pollution reduction measures would lead to the largest improvement on the overall air quality. We show that air quality improvements would require regional policies, in addition to local- and urban-scale measures, due to the transboundary features of PM pollution. We investigate emission inventory uncertainties and their propagation to PM2.5 concentrations, in order to identify the most effective strategies to be implemented at sector and regional level to improve emission inventories, knowledge and air quality modelling. We show that the uncertainty of PM concentrations depends not only on the uncertainty of local emission inventories, but also on that of the surrounding regions. Countries with high emission uncertainties are often impacted by the uncertainty of pollution coming from surrounding regions, highlighting the need for effective efforts in improving emissions not only within a region but also from extra-regional sources. Finally, we propagate emission inventory uncertainty to PM concentrations and health impacts. We estimate 2.1 million premature deaths per year with an uncertainty of more than 1 million premature deaths per year due to the uncertainty associated only with the emissions.