[Source Apportionment of Ozone Pollution in Guangzhou: Case Study with the Application of Lagrangian Photochemical...

A six-day ozone pollution episode in Guangzhou in early October 2018 was analyzed with the application of a Lagrangian photochemical trajectory model to trace the sources of ozone, quantify the contributions of different regions, and evaluate the effects of emission reduction measures targeted at different emission sectors and different precursors on ozone pollution. The results showed that during the ozone pollution episode, the maximum daily 8 h ozone exceeded 160 μg·m^-3 and the highest value reached 271 μg·m^-3. The average concentrations of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were (77.7±42.8) μg·m^-3 and (71.9±56.2) μg·m^-3, respectively. Aromatics and alkenes were the dominant reactive VOCs, with contributions of 38% and 30% to·OH reactivity and 51% and 16% to ozone formation potential, respectively. The ozone pollution in Guangzhou during this episode was affected by three types of air masses, with the primary source regions of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, and regions outside Guangdong Province. For all three air mass types, ozone production in these source region was controlled by VOCs. Sensitivity tests showed that, in the primary source regions, reducing the emissions of VOCs is more effective than reducing NO in terms of reducing ozone concentrations. Under the condition of full emission reduction, regulating traffic emissions could substantially reduce ozone levels by 14.6%-21.0% in Guangzhou, which was a more significant reduction than regulating controlled industry (8.4%-15.3%), power plant (0.9%-6.2%) and residential (2.3%-4.7%) emissions. However, the traffic emission reduction is not as effective (induced ozone reduction<10%) when the emissions reduction ratio is lower than 90%. In addition, biogenic emissions in the Pearl River Delta also substantially contributed to the ozone levels under certain circumstances, as indicated by the ozone reduction up to 19% when biogenic emissions were shut off.