Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Seasonal Trend of Water-Soluble Ions
at One TSP and Five PM 2.5 Sampling Sites
in Beijing, China
Nina Schleicher, Stefan Norra, Fahe Chai, Yizhen Chen,
Shulan Wang, and Doris Stüben
Introduction
Approximately 15 million people currently are living in Beijing, the capital of China.
The rapid economic growth comes along with a rapid growth of the urban population
and a huge increase in energy consumption. Beijing faces severe anthropogenic air
pollution caused by an intense increase of traffic, coal combusting power plants,
heavy industry, huge numbers of household and restaurant cookers, and domestic
heating stoves. Additionally, each year especially in spring, dust storms carry par-
ticulate matter over long distances from the deserts of Gobi and Takla Makan and
other semi-arid areas in the northwest of Beijing towards the city. Other sources of
particulate matter such as bare soils, coal heaps and construction sites occurring in
and around Beijing contribute to the air pollution. The single shares of the specific
aerosol sources are not known, neither are the mixing processes of these aerosols
within the area of Beijing.
Currently, the air pollution due to particulate matter in Beijing exceeds by far the
pollution in cities of Western Europe as well as national and international threshold
values. The high atmospheric pollution is reflected in a severe reduction of visibility
at many days in Beijing. This situation also affects the public health with regard to
respiratory diseases [1] . Water-soluble ions are easily released to the environment
and are known to have negative effects on human health [2, 3] . Furthermore, anions
such as nitrate and sulphate, cause acidification of rain. Therefore, this study
focuses on water-soluble ions in Beijing dust samples.
N. Schleicher, S. Norra, and D. Stüben
Institute of Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Universität Karlsruhe, Germany
F. Chai, Y. Chen, and S. Wang
Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, China
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