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This study aims to address accuracy challenges in assessing air pollution health impacts using Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMap), caused by limited meteorological factor data and missing pollutant data. By employing data increment strategies and multiple machine learning models, this research explores the effects of data volume, time steps, and meteorological factors on model prediction performance using several years of data from Tianjin City as an example. The findings indicate that increasing training data volume enhances the performance of Random Forest Regressor (RF) and Decision Tree Regressor (DT) models, especially for predicting CO, NO 2 , and PM 2.5 . The optimal prediction time step varies by pollutant, with the DT model achieving the highest R 2 value (0.99) for CO and O 3 . Combining multiple meteorological factors, such as atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, and dew point temperature, significantly improves model accuracy. When using three meteorological factors, the model achieves an R 2 of 0.99 for predicting CO, NO 2 , PM 10 , PM 2.5 , and SO 2 . Health impact assessments using BenMap demonstrated that the predicted all-cause mortality and specific disease mortalities were highly consistent with actual values, confirming the model's accuracy in assessing health impacts from air pollution. For instance, the predicted and actual all-cause mortality for PM2.5 were both 3120; for cardiovascular disease, both were 1560; and for respiratory disease, both were 780. To validate its generalizability, this method was applied to Chengdu, China, using several years of data for training and prediction of PM 2.5 , CO, NO 2 , O 3 , PM 10 , and SO 2 , incorporating atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, and dew point temperature. The model maintained excellent performance, confirming its broad applicability. Overall, we conclude that the machine learning and BenMap-based methods show high accuracy and reliability in predicting air pollutant concentrations and health impacts, providing a valuable reference for air pollution assessment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study comprehensively investigated the impact of dust storms (DSs) on downstream cities, by selecting representative DS events. In this paper, we discussed the characteristics of meteorological conditions, air pollutants, PM 2.5 components, and their influence on sulfate formation mechanisms. During DSs, strong winds, reaching speeds of up to 10 m/s, led to significant increases in PM 10 and PM 2.5 , with maximum concentrations of 2684.5 and 429 μg/m 3 , respectively. Primary gaseous pollutants experienced substantial reductions, with decline rates of 48.1, 34.9, 36.8, and 9.0 % for SO 2 , NO 2 , NH 3 , and CO, respectively. Despite a notable increase in PM 2.5 concentrations, only 7.6 % of the total mass of PM 2.5 was attributed to ionic and carbonaceous components, a much lower value than observed before the DSs (77.3 %). Concentrations of Fe, Ti, and Mn exhibited increases by factors of 6.5-14.1, 10.4-17.0, and 1.6-4.7, respectively. In contrast to the significant decrease of >76.2 % in nitrogen oxidation ratio (NOR), sulfur oxidation ratio (SOR) remained at a relatively high level, displaying a strong positive correlation with high concentrations of Fe, Mn, and Ti. Quantitative analysis revealed an average increase of 0.187 and 0.045 μg/m 3 in sulfate from natural sources and heterogeneous generation, respectively. The heterogeneous reaction on mineral dust was closely linked to atmospheric humidity, radiation intensity, the form of metal existence, and concentrations of it. High concentrations of titanium dioxide and iron‑manganese oxides in mineral dust promoted heterogeneous oxidation of SO 2 through photocatalysis during the daytime and metal ion catalysis during the nighttime. This study establishes that the metal components in mineral dust promote heterogeneous sulfate formation, quantifies the yield of sulfate generated as a result, and provides possible mechanisms for heterogeneous sulfate formation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest We declare that we have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) concentrations are affected by emissions, dispersion, and chemistry. This work developed an initial concentration-dispersion normalized PMF (ICDN-PMF) to reflect the changes in source emissions. The effects of photochemical losses for VOC species were corrected by estimating the initial data, and then applying dispersion normalization to reduce the impacts of atmospheric dispersion. Hourly speciated VOC data measured in Qingdao from March to May 2020 were utilized to test the method and had assessed its effectiveness. Underestimated solvent use and biogenic emissions contributions due to photochemical losses during the O 3 pollution (OP) period reached 4.4 and 3.8 times the non-O 3 pollution (NOP) period values, respectively. Increased solvent use contribution due to air dispersion during the OP period was 4.6 times the change in the NOP period. The influence of chemical conversion and air dispersion on the gasoline and diesel vehicle emissions was not apparent during either period. The ICDN-PMF results suggested that biogenic emissions (23.1 %), solvent use (23.0 %), motor-vehicle emissions (17.1 %), and natural gas and diesel evaporation (15.8 %) contributed most to ambient VOCs during the OP period. Biogenic emissions and solvent use contributions during the OP period increased by 187 % and 135 % compared with the NOP period, respectively, whereas that of liquefied petroleum gas substantially decreased during the OP period. Controlling solvent use and motor-vehicles could be effective in controlling VOCs in the OP period., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Conventional source apportionments of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been based on observed and initial concentrations after photochemical correction. However, these results have not been related to ozone (O 3 ) and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Thus, the apportioned contributions could not effectively support secondary pollution control development. Source apportionment of the VOCs consumed in forming O 3 and SOA is needed. A consumed VOC source apportionment approach was developed and applied to hourly speciated VOCs data from June to August 2022 measured in Laoshan, Qingdao. Biogenic emissions (56.3%), vehicle emissions (17.2%), and gasoline evaporation (9.37%) were the main sources of consumed VOCs. High consumed VOCs from biogenic emissions mainly occurred during transport from parks to the southwest and northwest of study site. During the O 3 pollution period, biogenic emissions (46.3%), vehicle emissions (24.2%), and gasoline evaporation (14.3%) provided the largest contributions to the consumed VOCs. However, biogenic emissions contribution increased to 57.1% during the non-O 3 pollution period, and vehicle emissions and gasoline evaporation decreased to 16.5% and 9.01%, respectively. Biogenic emissions and the mixed source of combustion sources and solvent use contributed the most to O 3 and SOA formation potentials during the O 3 pollution period, respectively., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMS), a key marker species of aqueous-phase processing, plays a significant role in sulfur budget in atmosphere. Here we have a comprehensive characterization of HMS at urban and rural sites in North China Plain (NCP) by using the real-time measurements from a high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) and a single-particle AMS together with offline filter analysis. Our results showed much higher winter concentration of HMS at the rural site (average±1σ: 2.58 ± 2.56 μg m -3 ) than that (1.70 ± 2.68 μg m -3 ) in Beijing due to the more frequent fog events, low particle acidity and high concentration of precursors. The HMS on average contributed 6.3% and 5.2% to organic aerosol (OA), and 16% and 12% to the total particulate sulfur, at the rural and urban sites, respectively. HMS was highly correlated with aqueous-phase secondary OA and sulfate, and its contribution to the total particulate sulfur increased significantly as a function of relative humidity demonstrating the effective HMS production from aqueous-phase processing. Single-particle analysis showed that HMS-containing particles were mainly mixed with amine-related compounds. In addition, we found that organosulfur compounds (OS) estimated from sulfur-containing fragments of AMS correlated well with HMS at both urban and rural sites. While OS at the rural site was dominated by HMS, other types of OS were also important in urban area. The high HMS also affected the estimation of particle acidity using the AMS measured and predicted ammonium, particularly during severe haze episodes. Overall, our results demonstrated the importance of HMS in winter in NCP, and it could be more important in total particulate sulfur budget as the continuous decrease in sulfate in the future., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

To better understand the role of stationary sources during the evolution of haze, we investigated sulfate formation characteristics at different stages of four haze events in Beijing, China. The mass fraction of sulfate in PM 2.5 increased while that of nitrate declined slightly during the worsening process of most haze events, consistent with higher ratios of SO 4 2- /NO 3 - on haze days (0.50 on average) than those on clean days (0.32 on average). Further calculations indicated that sulfate had a higher mass growth rate than nitrate during the haze-worsening process, probably due to regional transport of sulfate from heavy industrial areas accompanied by increased sulfate secondary transformation during polluted periods. We quantitatively evaluated the contribution of the S(IV) + NO 2 reaction (pH-dependent) in sulfate formation during the haze evolution. The production rate (P S(IV)+NO2 ) of the S(IV) + NO 2 pathway ranged from 1.97 × 10 -4 to 5.91 (mean: 0.39) μg·m -3 ·h -1 . Its proportion to sulfate total heterogeneous production rate (P S(IV)+NO2 /P het ) was generally correlated positively with PM 2.5 concentrations, indicating the relative importance of this pathway on haze days. Due to the mutual restriction between aerosol pH and aerosol liquid water content (ALWC) during haze evolution, the relative contribution of the S(IV) + NO 2 pathway to sulfate heterogeneous formation was generally limited to 40%., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides a time-series of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived atmospheric pollutants from 1970 to 2008. Mercury is included in EDGARv4.tox1, thereby enriching the spectrum of multi-pollutant sources in the database. With an average annual growth rate of 1.3% since 1970, EDGARv4 estimates that the global mercury emissions reached 1,287 tonnes in 2008. Specifically, gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) (Hg(0)) accounted for 72% of the global total emissions, while gaseous oxidised mercury (GOM) (Hg(2+)) and particle bound mercury (PBM) (Hg-P) accounted for only 22% and 6%, respectively. The less reactive form, i.e., Hg(0), has a long atmospheric residence time and can be transported long distances from the emission sources. The artisanal and small-scale gold production, accounted for approximately half of the global Hg(0) emissions in 2008 followed by combustion (29%), cement production (12%) and other metal industry (10%). Given the local-scale impacts of mercury, special attention was given to the spatial distribution showing the emission hot-spots on gridded 0.1°×0.1° resolution maps using detailed proxy data. The comprehensive ex-post analysis of the mitigation of mercury emissions by end-of-pipe abatement measures in the power generation sector and technology changes in the chlor-alkali industry over four decades indicates reductions of 46% and 93%, respectively. Combined, the improved technologies and mitigation measures in these sectors accounted for 401.7 tonnes of avoided mercury emissions in 2008. A comparison shows that EDGARv4 anthropogenic emissions are nearly equivalent to the lower estimates of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)'s mercury emissions inventory for 2005 for most sectors. An evaluation of the EDGARv4 global mercury emission inventory, including mercury speciation, was performed using the GEOS-Chem global 3-D mercury model. The model can generally reproduce both spatial variations and long-term trends in total gaseous mercury concentrations and wet deposition fluxes., (Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

The profiles of particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) near a major road and relative major sources were determined based on five 1-week intensive field campaigns in 2008 and 2009, and the impacts of temporary control measures on roadside PAHs during the Beijing Olympics are discussed. The annual average concentration of PAHs in the non-Olympic period was 42.3 ± 52.4 ng/m(3) and clear seasonal variation was present. Diesel vehicles, gasoline vehicles and coal combustion were identified as the three possible major sources of roadside PAHs using positive matrix factorization analysis. During the Olympics, the average total PAH concentration decreased to 4.8 ± 2.7 ng/m(3), which was attributed primarily to the reduction of local emissions. Temporary traffic control measures significantly changed the diurnal pattern of particulate PAHs at the roadside site. Diesel vehicle contribution, in particular, decreased to a negligible fraction because heavy-duty diesel vehicles were strictly banned., (© 2013.)