Title
The Urban-Rural Heterogeneity of Air Pollution in 35 Metropolitan Regions across China.
Abstract
Urbanization and air pollution are major anthropogenic impacts on Earth's environment, weather, and climate. Each has been studied extensively, but their interactions have not. Urbanization leads to a dramatic variation in the spatial distribution of air pollution (fine particles) by altering surface properties and boundary-layer micrometeorology, but it remains unclear, especially between the centers and suburbs of metropolitan regions. Here, we investigated the spatial variation, or inhomogeneity, of air quality in urban and rural areas of 35 major metropolitan regions across China using four different long-term observational datasets from both ground-based and space-borne observations during the period 2001-2015. In general, air pollution in summer in urban areas is more serious than in rural areas. However, it is more homogeneously polluted, and also more severely polluted in winter than that in summer. Four factors are found to play roles in the spatial inhomogeneity of air pollution between urban and rural areas and their seasonal differences: (1) the urban-rural difference in emissions in summer is slightly larger than in winter; (2) urban structures have a more obvious association with the spatial distribution of aerosols in summer; (3) the wind speed, topography, and different reductions in the planetary boundary layer height from clean to polluted conditions have different effects on the density of pollutants in different seasons; and (4) relative humidity can play an important role in affecting the spatial inhomogeneity of air pollution despite the large uncertainties.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.3390/rs12142320
REMOTE SENSING
Keywords
DocType
Volume
air pollution,aerosol,urbanization,spatial inhomogeneity,metropolitan regions in China
Journal
12
Issue
Citations 
PageRank 
14
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Wenchao Han100.34
Zhanqing Li23513.98
Jianping Guo33517.41
Tianning Su400.34
Tianmeng Chen500.34
jing wei6358.94
Maureen C. Cribb711.06