Impacts of local vs. trans-boundary emissions from different sectors on PM2.5 exposure in South Korea during the KORUS-AQ campaign

High concentrations of PM2.5 have become a serious environmental issue in South Korea, which ranked 1st or 2nd among OECD countries in terms of population exposure to PM2.5. Quantitative understanding of PM2.5 source attribution is thus crucial for developing efficient air quality mitigation strategies. Here we use a suite of extensive observations of PM2.5 and its precursors concentrations during the international KORea-US cooperative Air Quality field study in Korea (KORUS-AQ) in May–June 2016 to investigate source contributions to PM2.5 in South Korea under various meteorological conditions. For the quantitative analysis, we updated a 3-D chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, and its adjoint with the latest regional emission inventory and other recent findings. The updated model is evaluated by comparing against observed daily PM2.5 and its component concentrations from six ground sites (Bangnyung, Bulkwang, Olympic park, Gwangju, Ulsan, and Jeju). Overall, simulated concentrations of daily PM2.5 and its components are in a good agreement with observations over the peninsula. We conduct an adjoint sensitivity analysis for simulated surface level PM2.5 concentrations at five ground sites (except for Bangnyung because of its small population) under four different meteorological conditions: dynamic weather, stagnant, extreme pollution, and blocking periods. Source contributions by regions vary greatly depending on synoptic meteorological conditions. Chinese contribution accounts for almost 68% of PM2.5 in surface air in South Korea during the extreme pollution period of the campaign, whereas an enhanced contribution from domestic sources (57%) occurs for the blocking period. Results from our sensitivity analysis suggest that the reduction of domestic anthropogenic NH3 emissions could be most effective in reducing population exposure to PM2.5 in South Korea (effectiveness = 14%) followed by anthropogenic SO2 emissions from Shandong region (effectiveness = 11%), domestic anthropogenic NOx emissions (effectiveness = 10%), anthropogenic NH3 emissions from Shandong region (effectiveness = 8%), anthropogenic NOx emissions from Shandong region (effectiveness = 7%), domestic anthropogenic OC emissions (effectiveness = 7%), and domestic anthropogenic BC emissions (effectiveness = 5%).