PKU Research Team on Beijing’s PM2.5 Pollution accepted by Proceeding of the Royal Society A

Oct 16, 2015

Peking University, Oct. 15, 2015: The research on Beijing’s PM2.5 pollution, which was did by Professor Chen Songqi’s environmental big data research team, was recognized and accepted by Proceeding of the Royal Society A.
The real-time observation statistics of PM2.5 is greatly affected by meteorological factors, which is supposed to be calculated seriously in air quality evaluation process. Using statistical methods, the team analyzed the relationship between Beijing PM2.5 concentration and meteorological variables over the past five years. They assess the effectiveness of PM2.5 concentrations improvements in a new method: removing meteorological variables, adjusting the raw concentration data to reflect the real situation of urban pollution, and then making a rational, scientific guidance for the government environmental department. This statistical method presented can be widely used to assess air quality in other cities and regions as well.

Through the study of pollution and meteorological data of the past five years, the team found that without the affect of meteorology, there is no evident improvement of Beijing’s PM2.5 average pollution from 2012 to 2014. On the contrary, the concentration became higher.

Beijing 2010-2014 original monthly mean PM2.5 concentration (red) and the monthly mean concentrations after adjustment (blue and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals)

Beijing 2010-2014 the concentration of monthly mean PM2.5 in Beijing after adjustment

When the method was applied in the effect analysis of the 2014 APEC pollution-control measures, researchers found that the "APEC Blue" indeed resulted from measurements of reducing pollution. They also analyzed the winter heating effect in Beijing from 2010 to 2014, and found that the PM2.5 concentration was more than 50% higher during the winter heating period compared with the non-heating period. The heating effect is difficult to reflect in the monitoring data if the fair method mentioned in article left unused.

Winter heating effect:

(a) PM2.5 in November non-heating period (blue) and the heating period (red) of the original average concentration (solid black dots), the adjusted mean concentration (solid white line) and 95% confidence interval.

(b) PM2.5 in March heating period (red) and the non-heating period (blue) of the original average concentration (solid black dots), the adjusted mean concentration (solid white line) and 95% confidence intervals.

At the end of the article, researchers suggested that more effective measurements should be implemented and more district environmental regulations should be enforced if Beijing government wants to achieve the goal prescribed in “Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Action Plan"——a 25% reduction in 2017 compared with 2012, and an average concentration of PM2.5 below 60 micrograms / cubic meter.

Professor Chen Songqi is the dean of Business Statistics and Econometrics in Guanghua School of Management, and the leader of the research team. The first author of the article is Liang Xuan, a doctoral student of Guanghua School. Other authors are Zou Tao, Li Shuo, Zhang Shuyi, doctoral students from the same school, and Zhang Haozhe from Iowa State University. Assistant Professor Guo Bin from Sichuan University and Assistant Professor Huang Hui form Peking University are corresponding authors of the thesis.

Written by: Wang Zehua

Edited by: Wu Zhangxinan

Source: PKU News Center

(http://pkunews.pku.edu.cn/xwzh/2015-10/14/content_290829.htm)

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