iScience (Dec 2022)

The urgent need to control volatile organic compound pollution over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

  • Guiqian Tang,
  • Dan Yao,
  • Yanyu Kang,
  • Yuting Liu,
  • Yusi Liu,
  • Yinghong Wang,
  • Zhixuan Bai,
  • Jie Sun,
  • Zhiyuan Cong,
  • Jinyuan Xin,
  • Zhaoyun Liu,
  • Zhenyu Zhu,
  • Yejun Geng,
  • Lili Wang,
  • Tingting Li,
  • Xin Li,
  • Jianchun Bian,
  • Yuesi Wang

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 25, no. 12
p. 105688

Abstract

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Summary: Owing to the impact of the western development of China, there have been signs of air pollution over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in recent years. However, monitoring data on atmospheric volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are lacking in plateau areas. Here, VOCs concentrations in urban and background areas in North China and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were observed from 2012 to 2014 and 2020 to 2022, respectively. Compared to 2012–2014, the concentration of VOCs increased to 2.5 times in urban areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which was equivalent to that in North China. Oil, gas, and solvent evaporation caused by a low atmospheric pressure is the primary factor for the increase in VOCs in plateau areas, and weak VOCs degradation is the secondary factor. Hence, we put forward the VOCs control strategies in plateau areas and point out the defects in the current research.

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