ABSTRACT
Current state and trends of air quality in the People’s Republic of China The urban atmospheric environment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been seriously polluted with high concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and total suspended particle (TSP) for many years now, due mainly to its coaldominated energy structure. With rapid urbanization and advancement of transport infrastructure, vehicle exhaust pollution has also aggravated in the PRC. Within the last two decades, all types of environmental problems, which took nearly a century for developed countries to experience, exploded in the developed regions of the PRC. Regional air pollution complex, coal-combustion pollution, vehicle exhaust pollution and pollution caused by multiple other pollutants were experienced in key local and regional clusters of the PRC. It was observed that regional air quality, in particular, has a trend of exacerbating with the frequent occurrence of toxic and hazardous photochemical smog, regional haze and acid deposition which may pose serious health risks to the population.
