Reducing heat exposure from personal cooling strategies to green city construction in China's tropical city

With rapid industrialization and urbanization, the risk of summer heat exposure for urban dwellers has increased. The use of air conditioners (ACs) has become the most common personal cooling strategy, but further increasing fossil fuel consumption. As sustainable and affordable cooling strategies, urban parks can reduce heat exposure and substitute a part of air conditioners use. This study evaluates the heat exposure reduction from personal cooling to urban parks based on satellite images, questionnaire surveys, and network analysis in Liuzhou, one tropical city in China. We found that residents with lower income had a higher risk of heat exposure. Among the respondents, 85 % of residents chose to use ACs to alleviate high temperatures in summer, and 81.8 % among them were willing to access park cooling area (PCA) to cool off instead of using ACs. About one third parks could serve as potential alternatives (with temperatures <28 °C) to air conditioning, reducing carbon emissions by 175.93 tons per day during the hot summer and offsetting 2.5 % of urban fossil fuel carbon emissions. The design of parks should give more consideration to elder people and provide a good cooling platform for various social income groups. Future planning should also focus on accessibility to enable residents to fully utilize the parks. Building parks within 34.10 ha would provide a more efficient use of land. This research guides sustainable, high-quality growth in industrial cities and might contribute to promotion of low-carbon cities and social equity.

Analyzing ozone formation sensitivity in a typical industrial city in China: Implications for effective source control in the chemical transition regime

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play a major role in O3 formation in urban environments. However, the complexity in the emissions of VOCs and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in industrial cities has made it challenging to identify the key factors influencing O3 formation. This study used observation-based-model (OBM) to analyze O3 sensitivities to VOCs and NOx during summer in a typical industrial city in China. The OBM model results were coupled with a receptor model to analyze the sources of O3. Higher concentrations of O3 precursors were observed during polluted periods indicating that precursor accumulation contributed to the higher maxima of the net ozone formation rate and HOx concentrations. Analyses of ROx· budgets and relative incremental reactivity (RIR) indicated that O3 production is in a chemical transition regime and was sensitive to both VOCs and NOx. Results from Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis indicated that gasoline vehicle emissions, industrial processes, and coal combustion were major sources of O3 precursors. The sensitivities of O3 production to these sources depend on if both VOC and NOx sensitivities are considered. If only VOCs sensitivity is considered, in contrast, the contribution of anthropogenic sources to O3 production was significantly underestimated. This study highlights the importance of accounting for both VOCs and NOx sensitivities when O3 chemistry is in a transition regime in O3 production attribution studies.

Simulation of emission reduction path under the path of differentiated energy transformation in China's industrial cities: a case study of Shanghai

The formulation of long-term step-by-step emission reduction plan is an important step for effective scientific emission reduction. This paper takes Shanghai as the research object, constructs PSO-LSTM model on the basis of STIRPAT model, and further constructs three dynamic policy scenarios combined with China's actual situation and makes short-, medium-, and long-term multivariate predictions for them. The study finds that only the improvement of energy consumption structure has a promotion effect on carbon emission reduction, and urbanization, industrial structure, technology level, population, and economic level all have an increasing effect, and secondly, the carbon emission reduction path of Shanghai basically achieves the core objective of steady decrease under the three scenarios. Secondly, under the three scenarios, Shanghai's carbon emission reduction path basically achieves the core objective of steady decline, but the decline in the GU scenario is more significant. It is recommended that Shanghai further adjusts its industrial structure, optimizes its energy consumption structure, promotes technological innovation and progress, and promotes the development of the circular economy model.

Significantly mitigating PM2.5 pollution level via reduction of NOx emission during wintertime

Despite considerable decreases in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Chinese megacities over the past decade, many second- and third-tier cities that distribute abundant industrial enterprises are still facing great challenges for PM2.5 further reduction under the recent policy background of eliminating heavily-polluted weather. In view of core effects of NOx on PM2.5, the deeper reductions of NOx in these cities are expected to break the plateau of PM2.5 decline, however, the link between NOx emission and PM2.5 mass loading is currently lacking. Herein, we progressively construct an evaluation system for PM2.5 productions based on daily NOx emissions in a typical industrial city (Jiyuan), considering a sequence of nested parameters involving evolutions of NO2 into nitric acid and then nitrate, and contributions of nitrate to PM2.5. The evaluation system was subsequently validated to better reproduce real increasing processes for PM2.5 pollution based on 19 pollution cases, with root mean square errors of 19.2 ± 16.4 %, suggesting the feasibility of developing NOx emission indicators linked to goals of mitigating atmospheric PM2.5. Additionally, further comparative results reveal that currently high NOx emissions in this industrial city severely hinder the achievement of atmospheric PM2.5 environmental capacity targets, especially in the scenarios of high initial PM2.5 level, low planetary boundary layer height and long pollution duration. It is anticipated that these methodologies and findings would supply guidelines for further regional PM2.5 mitigation, in which source-oriented NOx indicators could also provide some orientations for industrial cleaner production such as denitrification and low nitrogen combustion.

Ecological risk and early warning of soil compound pollutants (HMs, PAHs, PCBs and OCPs) in an industrial city, Changchun, China

Soil ecological risk caused by compound pollutants is a topic that deserves increasing attention, and soil risk early warning is a more in-depth discussion on this topic. In this study, we collected soil samples from Changchun, a typical industrial city, and determined the contents of 13 heavy metals (HMs) (0.00 mg kg^-1-6380 mg kg^-1), 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (0.00 mg kg^-1-27.7 mg kg^-1), 7 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (0.30 μg kg^-1-168 μg kg^-1), and 8 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) (0.00 mg kg^-1-4.52 mg kg^-1). The soil ecological risks of compound pollutants were assessed. The results showed that PAHs were the greatest risk pollutants, followed by PCBs and HMs, and OCPs were the smallest risk pollutants. Most of the ecological risks of compound pollutants were classified as "moderate severity" level according to the (contamination severity index) CSI evaluation criteria. With the help of modern industrial economic theory, through the analysis of the annual accumulation of pollutants, it is possible to predict the future pollutant content in Changchun, and the soil risks could be forewarned. The results showed that if active measures were not taken to reduce the accumulation of PAHs in Changchun soil, the CSI-PAHs would be classified as "ultra-high severity" level in 2035.

Health needs assessment of workers in Kaveh industrial city

Background: Health needs assessment (HNA) is essential for allocation of limited resources to the most prioritized problems. HNA in work places has gained increasing importance. Kaveh industrial city is the largest and oldest industrial city in Iran, with a wide range of different industries, making it an exemplary industrial city in Iran. This study was done to conduct health needs assessment of workers in Kaveh industrial city.

Methods: In this study, intensive HNA approach and qualitative method were used. In-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted to collect information related to health risk factors, and Delphi method was used to prioritize these risk factors. A total of 74 key informants participated in this study, which constituted more than 80% of the total related experts of Kaveh industrial city.

Results: The main identified health challenge was inefficiency of the existing Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) control and monitoring system. The most important physical health risk factors were smoking and obesity and the most prioritized psychosocial risk factors were stress and lack of appropriate management and organizational culture. Ergonomic issues and noise pollution were the prioritized work environmental factors and inappropriate placement of pollutant industries in the industrial city was the most prioritized bioenvironmental risk factor. Unsafe road to industrial zone and poor safety devices used by workers were the most prioritized occupational injuries risk factors.

Conclusion: Addressing the identified health needs of workers in Kaveh industrial city is of high importance. Also, redefining the HSE control and monitoring system should be prioritized