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Study on the spatial and temporal evolutionary characteristics of ozone concentration and the impact of human activities in China in 2019

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Abstract

Ozone (O3) pollution has a profound impact on human health, vegetation development, and the ecological environment, making it a critical focus of global academic research. In recent years, O3 pollution in China has been on a steady rise, with ozone emerging as the sole conventional pollutant to consistently increase in concentration without any decline. This study conducted a quantitative analysis of O3 concentrations across 367 Chinese cities in 2019, examining spatial autocorrelation and local clustering of O3 levels, and investigated the diverse relationships between human activity factors and O3 concentration. The seasonal fluctuation of O3 exhibited the “M-type” pattern, with peak concentrations in winter and the lowest levels in summer. The center of O3 pollution migrated southeastward, with the area of highest concentration progressively shifting south along the eastern coast. Moreover, O3 concentration showed a strong positive correlation with population density, road freight volume, and industrial emissions, suggesting that human activities, vehicle emissions, and industrial operations are significant contributors to O3 production. The results provide comprehensive information on the characteristics, causes, and occurrence mechanism of O3 in Chinese cities that can be utilized by global government departments to formulate strategies to prevent and control O3 pollution.

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Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 42101318), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant number 2018YFD1100101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Yongchun Wang

  2. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, 412007, China

    Wang Zhang, Yu’an Liu & Yuting Fu

  3. Nan**g Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nan**g, 210008, China

    Yazhu Wang

  4. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100101, China

    Zhaohui Feng & Lingqing Wang

Authors
  1. Yongchun Wang
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  2. Wang Zhang
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  3. Yu’an Liu
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  4. Yazhu Wang
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  5. Yuting Fu
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  6. Zhaohui Feng
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  7. Lingqing Wang
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Contributions

YW: Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing—Original draft; WZ: Investigation, Methodology, Visualization; YL: Visualization, Investigation; YW: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—Reviewing and Editing, Supervision; ZF: Data Curation, Writing—Reviewing and Editing; YF: Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing—Reviewing and Editing; LW: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing—Reviewing and Editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yazhu Wang.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Wang, Y., Zhang, W., Liu, Y. et al. Study on the spatial and temporal evolutionary characteristics of ozone concentration and the impact of human activities in China in 2019. Acta Geochim (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-024-00695-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11631-024-00695-1

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