Source apportionment of the particulate PAHs at Seoul, Korea: impact of long range transport to a megacity

[摘要] Northeast Asia including China, Korea, and Japan is one of the world'slargest fossil fuel consumption regions. Seoul, Korea, is a megacity inNortheast Asia. Its emissions of air pollutants can affect the region, andin turn it is also affected by regional emissions. To understand the extentof these influences, major sources of ambient particulate PAHs in Seoul wereidentified and quantified based on measurements made between August 2002 andDecember 2003. The chemical mass balance (CMB) model was applied. Sevenmajor emission sources were identified based on the emission data in Seouland Northeast Asia: Gasoline and diesel vehicles, residential coal use, cokeovens, coal power plants, biomass burning, and natural gas (NG) combustion.The major sources of particulate PAHs in Seoul during the whole measurementperiod were gasoline and diesel vehicles, together accounted for 31% ofthe measured particulate PAHs levels. However, the source contributionsshowed distinct daily and seasonal variations. High contributions of biomassburning and coal (residential and coke oven) were observed in fall andwinter, accounting for 63% and 82% of the total concentration of PAHs,respectively. Since these sources were not strong in and around Seoul, theyare likely to be related to transport from outside of Seoul, from Chinaand/or North Korea. This implies that the air quality in a mega-city such asSeoul can be influenced by the long range transport of air pollutants suchas PAHs.

[学科分类] 大气科学