Ziyuan Kexue (Sep 2023)
The response of major air pollutants concentration to land use types in China
Abstract
[Objective] Human activities change the nature of the underlying surface, which in turn has a significant impact on the spatiotemporal changes in air pollutant concentrations. Exploring the response relationship between air pollutant concentrations and land use area is beneficial for understanding and controlling air pollution from the perspective of land resource management. [Methods] Based on the generalized additive model (GAM), this study investigated the nonlinear response relationship between the proportion of land use areas in 10 km × 10 km grids and the annual average concentrations of four main air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, O3, and NO2) in 2020 in the six regions of China. The study used the air pollution effect contribution index (APECI) to identify contributions contrasting different land use types to the air pollutants in different pollutant concentration ranges. [Results] (1) In 2020, the highest regional annual average concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 occurred in Northwest China and the lowest in Southwest China; NO2 and O3 had the highest regional annual average concentrations in East China, which were 25.23 μg/m3 and 102.60 μg/m3, respectively. (2) Air pollutant concentrations showed a nonlinear response relationship with the proportion of grid-based land use area. Generally, the increase in the proportion of the grid areas of farmland, construction land, and unused land led to an upward trend in the air pollutant concentration, while forest land and grassland often showed the opposite. (3) With regard to the differences in APECI, forest land and grassland showed a high APECI in the low air pollutant concentration ranges, while farmland and construction land showed a high APECI in the high air pollutant concentration ranges, but the APECI of water area and unused land varied in different regions. [Conclusion] This study proposed the possible overall effect of gridded land use area proportion on air pollution based on regional differences across China, providing a reference for regional joint prevention and control of air pollution and territorial spatial planning.
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