Conibear, L orcid.org/0000-0003-2801-8862, Reddington, CL orcid.org/0000-0002-5990-4966, Silver, BJ orcid.org/0000-0003-0395-0637 et al. (4 more authors) (2022) Sensitivity of Air Pollution Exposure and Disease Burden to Emission Changes in China Using Machine Learning Emulation. GeoHealth, 6 (6). e2021GH000570. ISSN 2471-1403
Abstract
Machine learning models can emulate chemical transport models, reducing computational costs and enabling more experimentation. We developed emulators to predict annual−mean fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) concentrations and their associated chronic health impacts from changes in five major emission sectors (residential, industrial, land transport, agriculture, and power generation) in China. The emulators predicted 99.9% of the variance in PM2.5 and O3 concentrations. We used these emulators to estimate how emission reductions can attain air quality targets. In 2015, we estimate that PM2.5 exposure was 47.4 μg m−3 and O3 exposure was 43.8 ppb, associated with 2,189,700 (95% uncertainty interval, 95UI: 1,948,000–2,427,300) premature deaths per year, primarily from PM2.5 exposure (98%). PM2.5 exposure and the associated disease burden were most sensitive to industry and residential emissions. We explore the sensitivity of exposure and health to different combinations of emission reductions. The National Air Quality Target (35 μg m−3) for PM2.5 concentrations can be attained nationally with emission reductions of 72% in industrial, 57% in residential, 36% in land transport, 35% in agricultural, and 33% in power generation emissions. We show that complete removal of emissions from these five sectors does not enable the attainment of the WHO Annual Guideline (5 μg m−3) due to remaining air pollution from other sources. Our work provides the first assessment of how air pollution exposure and disease burden in China varies as emissions change across these five sectors and highlights the value of emulators in air quality research.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. GeoHealth published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | emulator; machine learning; air quality; health impact assessment; China; particulate matter |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 May 2022 10:31 |
Last Modified: | 15 Jan 2025 09:16 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Geophysical Union |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2021GH000570 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:187346 |