An evaluation of improvements in the air quality of Beijing arising from the use of new vehicle emission standards.

An innovative approach of mean emission by vehicle type was used in this paper to assess the impact of new vehicle emission standards in Beijing, China during the period of 2000-2005. It was found that CO and NO(x) emissions decreased by 48% and 23%, respectively, from Type O (before 2000) to Type I (year 2000) vehicles. The reductions from Type O to Type II (year 2002) vehicles were 85% and 73% for CO and NO(x), respectively. When all three types of vehicles (Types O, I and II) are combined, the annual per vehicle CO emissions decreased from 586 kg per vehicle per year in 2000 to 324 kg per vehicle per year in 2005, while that of NO(x) decreased from 66.9 to 43.4 kg per vehicle per year, which was mainly resulted from the impact of stringent new vehicle emission standards implemented in years 2000 and 2002. However, the vehicle population increased by 70% during the same time period, which offset the impact of cleaner vehicles. Thus, the total vehicle emission decreased little for CO (885,000 tons in 2000, 837,000 tons in 2005) and even increased slightly for NO(x) (101,000 and 112,000 tons in 2000 and 2005, respectively). The ambient concentrations of CO decreased significantly throughout 2000-2005, the same trend was not observed for NO(2). Correlation analysis (grey correlation and Pearson correlation) between the annual vehicle emissions and annual concentrations of CO, the annual NO(x) emission and annual NO(2) concentration indicated that the implementation of new vehicle emission standards was associated with the abatement of ambient CO and NO(2) concentrations in Beijing.

Citation

Taosheng Jin, Jiajia Gao, Lixin Fu, Yi Ai, Xiaohong Xu. An evaluation of improvements in the air quality of Beijing arising from the use of new vehicle emission standards. Environmental monitoring and assessment. 2012 Apr;184(4):2151-9

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PMID: 21584759

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