Impact of spatial scales of control measures on the effectiveness of ozone pollution mitigation in eastern China

Ozone (O₃) pollution is becoming the primary air pollution issue with the large decrease in fine particulate concentrations in eastern China. The development of widely recognized policies for controlling O₃ pollution episodes is urgent. This study aims to provide actionable and comprehensive suggestions for O₃ control policy development, with an emphasis on the precursor emission reductions. Here, we compared the impacts of different spatial scale reductions on a widespread O₃ pollution episode in eastern China by a state-of-the-art regional air quality model. We find that region-scale joint control (in >30 cities) is much more effective than city-scale sporadic reduction in reducing O₃ concentration. Sporadic controls only reduce the maximum daily 8-h average (MDA8) O₃ by ∼1 μg/m³ in the controlled city, whereas regional controls lead to a MDA8 O₃ decrease of ∼8 μg/m³ in the controlled region. In addition, the emission reduction effectiveness increased by 2.6 times from <5 cities to >30 cities. Continuous reductions have a cumulative effect on the decrease of MDA8 O₃, showing the strongest effects within 24 h and diminishing after 48 h, which underscores the importance of reducing emissions 24 h prior to an episode. Moreover, the effect of control measures on MDA8 O₃ varies spatially depending on the ratio of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to nitrogen oxides (NO_x) (VOCs/NO_x). Both the reductions of VOC and NO_x emissions have a positive effect on the decrease of MDA8 O₃ in summer, but the effects of VOC reductions are 1.2 to 1.7 times higher than those of NO_x reductions. The residential sector, due to its high VOCs/NO_x emission ratio, exhibits the highest efficiency in the reduction of O₃ concentrations. Our results highlight the importance of regional joint control and synergistic reduction of VOCs and NO_x in eastern China.