A heavy haze episode in Beijing in February of 2014: Characteristics, origins and implications

More than half Chinese cities are suffering from severe air pollution due to the rapid development of industry and urbanization. Beijing, as a political and cultural center of China, has frequently suffered from severe haze. However, the precise sources of air pollution in Beijing still remain uncertain. In this study, the observational data (PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, CO and SO2) at ten monitoring stations from February 8 to 28, 2014, in Beijing were used to analyze air pollution. The satellite observations for aerosol optical thickness were also used. Backward trajectory model and receptor models were used to identify the sources of air pollution in Beijing. On the basis of PM2.5 concentrations, we separated the whole data into three categories: relatively clean air (PM2.5 concentrations less than 75 μg m–3), haze (PM2.5 concentrations greater than 75 μg m3 but less than 200 μg m3) and heavy haze (PM2.5 concentrations greater than 200 μg m3). The results show that the average concentrations of PM2.5 are 29.5 μg m3, 136.6 μg m3 and 311.2 μg m3 for relatively clean air, haze and heavy haze cases, respectively. The back trajectory cluster analysis reveals that the predominant clusters are east and south for the heavy haze case. The results of the receptor models show that for the haze case, pollutants mainly originated from south of Beijing such as Dezhou, Liaocheng and Heze in Shandong province, while for the heavy haze case, pollutants were mainly from southwest of Beijing such as Baoding, Hengshui and Handan in Hebei province. These results indicate that the emissions in the surrounding provinces made a significant contribution to Beijing's air pollution. Thus, it is necessary to implement air pollution control for all surrounding areas, especially for the industrial zones in the south/southwest regions of Beijing.