Atmospheric Reactive Nitrogen in China: Sources, Recent Trends, and Damage Costs

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• 作者：Baojing Gu ; Ying Ge ; Yuan Ren ; Bin Xu ; Weidong Luo ; Hong Jiang ; Binhe Gu ; Jie Chang
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T)
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：September 4, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：46
• 期：17
• 页码：9420-9427
• 全文大小：572K
• 年卷期：v.46,no.17(September 4, 2012)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Human activities have intensely altered the global nitrogen cycle and produced nitrogenous gases of environmental significance, especially in China where the most serious atmospheric nitrogen pollution worldwide exists. We present a comprehensive assessment of ammonia (NH₃), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions in China based on a full cycle analysis. Total reactive nitrogen (Nr) emission more than doubled over the past three decades, during which the trend of increase slowed for NH₃ emissions after 2000, while the trend of increase continued to accelerate for NO_x and N₂O emissions. Several hotspots were identified, and their Nr emissions were about 10 times higher than others. Agricultural sources take 95% of total NH₃ emission; fossil fuel combustion accounts for 96% of total NO_x emission; agricultural (51%) and natural sources (forest and surface water, 39%) both contribute to the N₂O emission in China. Total atmospheric Nr emissions related health damage in 2008 in China reached US$19鈥?2 billion, accounting for 0.4鈥?.4% of China鈥檚 gross domestic product, of which 52鈥?0% were from NH₃ emission and 39鈥?7% were from NO_x emission. These findings provide policy makers an integrated view of Nr sources and health damage to address the significant challenges associated with the reduction of air pollution.