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Ambient levels and temporal variations of PM2.5 and

PM10 at a residential site in the mega-city, Nanjing, in
the western Yangtze River Delta, China
a b b a b b b b
Guo F. Shen , Si Y. Yuan , Yu N. Xie , Si J. Xia , Li Li , Yu K. Yao , Yue Z. Qiao ,
b b a b b
Jie Zhang , Qiu Y. Zhao , Ai J. Ding , Bin Li & Hai S. Wu
a
Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing
University , Nanjing , China
b
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Environmental Sciences ,
Nanjing , China
Published online: 30 Oct 2013.

To cite this article: Guo F. Shen , Si Y. Yuan , Yu N. Xie , Si J. Xia , Li Li , Yu K. Yao , Yue Z. Qiao , Jie Zhang , Qiu Y. Zhao ,
Ai J. Ding , Bin Li & Hai S. Wu (2014) Ambient levels and temporal variations of PM2.5 and PM10 at a residential site in the
mega-city, Nanjing, in the western Yangtze River Delta, China, Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A: Toxic/
Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering, 49:2, 171-178, DOI: 10.1080/10934529.2013.838851

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 Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A (2014) 49, 171–178
Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1093-4529 (Print); 1532-4117 (Online)

DOI: 10.1080/10934529.2013.838851

Ambient levels and temporal variations of PM2.5 and PM10

at a residential site in the mega-city, Nanjing, in the western
Yangtze River Delta, China

GUO F. SHEN1,2, SI Y. YUAN2, YU N. XIE1, SI J. XIA2, LI LI2, YU K. YAO2, YUE Z. QIAO2, JIE ZHANG2,
QIU Y. ZHAO2, AI J. DING1, BIN LI2 and HAI S. WU2
1
Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
2
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Environmental Sciences, Nanjing, China
Downloaded by [Universitat Politècnica de València] at 07:06 28 October 2014

The deteriorating air quality in eastern China including the Yangtze River Delta is attracting growing public concern. In this study, we
measured the ambient PM10 and fine PM2.5 in the mega-city, Nanjing at four different times. The 24-h average PM2.5 and PM10 mass
concentrations were 0.033–0.234 and 0.042–0.328 mg/m3, respectively. The daily PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were 2.9 (2.7–3.2,
at 95% confidence interval) and 4.2 (3.8–4.6) times the WHO air quality guidelines of 0.025 mg/m3 for PM2.5 and 0.050 mg/m3 for
PM10 , respectively, which indicated serious air pollution in the city. There was no obvious weekend effect. The highest PM10 pollution
occurred in the wintertime, with higher PM2.5 loadings in the winter and summer. PM2.5 was correlated significantly with PM10 and
the average mass fraction of PM2.5 in PM10 was about 72.5%. This fraction varied during different sampling periods, with the lowest
PM2.5 fraction in the spring but minor differences among the other three seasons.
Keywords: Particulate matter, temporal variation, weekend effect, western YRD region.

Introduction air pollution in China and the economic burden of prema-

Ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution is a growing
public concern worldwide because of the significant
impacts on air quality, human health, and local/regional
climate change.[1–6] High level PM loadings are generally
thought to be responsible for the increased occurrence of
haze because the atmospheric visibility could be reduced
due to light extinction (absorption and scattering) by PM,
especially the fine PM2.5 (PM with diameter less than
2.5 µm).[7–9] It has been estimated that exposure to ambient
PM pollution accounted for 3.1 million deaths and 3.1%
of global DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) during
2010.[10] Globally, ambient PM pollution was the ninth
highest risk factor among all of the factors investigated,
while it was the fourth highest risk factor in East Asia and
the single largest environmental risk factor.[10]
Experimental measurements and model simulation stud-
ies have identified severe air pollution in China, especially
in the eastern area.[11–13] It is estimated that about 350–400
thousands premature deaths were attributable to ambient
Address correspondence to Guo F. Shen, School of Atmosphe-
ric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing; E-mail: gfshen12@
gmail.com or azjlgd@gmail.com
Received May 8, 2013.
ture mortality and morbidity was conservatively estimated
at about 157 billion RMB (1.16% of the GDP) in 2003, and
may be as high as 520 billion RMB using the willing-to-pay
estimation.[14,15]
The Yangtze River Delta (YRD), which includes the city
of Shanghai and the Provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, is
one of the most developed and fastest growing urbanized
regions in China. A serious air pollution problem has been
documented in the region.[16–19] Relatively high emission
densities of primary air pollutants, such as particulate mat-
ter, black carbon, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
have been reported in this region.[20–23] The regional air
quality is deteriorating in the YRD region and the atmo-
spheric visibility has decreased significantly during the past
three decades.[7,17] The YRD region has been identified as
a key area in the recent plan for the joint prevention and
control of air pollution in China.[24]
Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, locates in the
western YRD and it has an area of about 6587 km2 with
a population of about 8.1 million. As a highly industrial-
ized and urbanized city, Nanjing suffers from severe atmo-
spheric problems. It was reported that the average visibility
in Nanjing during 2004 was only 8.8 km and days with daily
average visibility of <10 km comprised about 58% through-
out whole year.[25] A very limited number of studies have
 172
focused on the air pollutants in this city, such as PM, heavy
metals and toxic organics.[26–30] More studies are required
urgently, particularly those focused on the air pollution and
its sources, to support the environmental protection deci-
sions of policy makers. The main objective of this study
was to obtain a basic understanding of the ambient PM
pollution levels, especially the fine PM2.5 pollution in the
city, the fine PM mass fraction, and seasonal variations.
Materials and methods
Sampling site
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Ambient PM2.5 and PM10 samples were collected simulta-
neously for 24 h using quartz fiber filters (47 mm, Millipore)
in November 2011, and March, June, and August, 2012. Ac-
tive samplers (16.7 L/min, Wuhan Tianhong Instruments,
China) were set up on the top roof of a seven-floor building
in a residential area with a college nearby. The sampling
site was downwind of the downtown city area, which was a
representative site for the dynamic characterization of air
pollution in the city. [16]
PM measurement and quality control
The filters was prebaked at 500◦ C for 4 h, and stored in
a desiccator for 24 h prior to use. After sampling, the
particle-loaded filters were conditioned in the desiccator
for another 24 h to reach equilibrium. Before and after
sampling, the filters were weighed gravimetrically using a
high precision digital balance (XP105DR, Mettler-Toledo,
Greifensee, Switzerland). The PM mass concentration was
calculated based on the mass difference and the total sam-
pling volume. The detection limit was estimated to be
0.42 µg/m3 by assigning a sampling volume of 24.048 m3
and a balance sensitivity of 0.01 mg. The measurement un-
Fig. 1. The 24-h average PM10 (blue) and PM2.5 (red) mass concentrations during the sampling period in Nanjing. The national
standard and WHO guideline values are also shown as unbroken and broken lines, respectively (color figure available online).
Shen et al.
certainty was derived from errors in the sampling procedure
(i.e., the absorption of volatile organic compounds was not
considered in the present study) and weight measurement.
A field blank was also conducted and the results reported
here were blank corrected.
Data analysis
A NOAA Hysplit (hybrid single-particle Lagrangian inte-
grated trajectory) model was used to calculate the air mass
trajectories,[31] to investigate the potential pollution source
and long-rang transport of the airborne mass. The 72-h
backward trajectory that originated from the sampling site
was calculated.[32] SPSS (Chicago, IL, USA) was used for
the data analysis with a significance level of 0.05.
Results and discussion
PM mass concentration
Figure 1 shows the daily PM2.5 and PM10 mass con-
centrations throughout the sampling period. The straight
lines show the Chinese National Ambient Air Quality
Standards (0.075 mg/m3 for PM2.5 and 0.150 mg/m3 for
PM10 in the second grade Ambient air functional Zone)[33]
and the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines
(0.025 mg/m3 for PM2.5 and 0.050 mg/m3 for PM10 ).[34]
There were very high variations in the daily PM load-
ings. The daily PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were 0.033-
0.234 mg/m3 and from 0.042–0.328 mg/m3, respectively.
The overall PM2.5 and PM10 means were 0.106 and
0.146 mg/m3, respectively. The daily average of PM10
concentration in this study was 0.97 times (0.89–1.1 as
95% Confidence Interval) of the national standard of
0.150 mg/m3, while the PM2.5 concentration was 1.4 (1.3-
1.5) times the standard. Compared with the WHO PM
guidelines for a 24 h period, the PM pollution was much
 Ambient levels and temporal variations of PM2.5 and PM10 in Nanjing
more serious. On average, the daily PM10 concentration was
about 2.9 (2.7–3.2) times the WHO standard, while the fine
PM2.5 was 4.2 (3.8–4.6) times the standard.
Up to 40 and 74% of the total sampling days had 24-h
average PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations above the Chinese
National Standards, respectively. Compared with the WHO
Standard, all of the daily PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations
exceeded the standards, which indicated severe PM pollu-
tion and the detrimental health impacts of air pollution in
the city.
The PM10 level found in this study was much higher than
the national average level of 0.083 mg/m3.[35] According
to the national statistics, the annual average PM10 concen-
trations in Nanjing during the past 10 years were similar
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to those in most major cities, such as Beijing, Tianjin, and
Shanghai, but higher than those in Guangzhou, Haikou
and Nanning in South China.[36] The annual average
concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing during 2001–2004 was
0.096–0.107 mg/m3, [4] which is comparable to the average
of 0.106 mg/m3 in the present study. In 2003, a field
campaign was conducted to simultaneously measure the
ambient PM2.5 and carbon fractions in 14 cities (excluding
Nanjing) throughout China.[37]
Relative to other domestic cities, the PM2.5 concen-
tration in Nanjing during the winter was comparable to
the levels in the Northern China Plain and other YRD
regions, such as Beijing (0.126 ± 0.066 mg/m3), Tianjin
(0.179 ± 0.088 mg/m3), Shanghai (0.151 ± 0.095 mg/m3)
and Hangzhou (0.168 ± 0.055 mg/m3), but lower than
those in Xi’an (0.375 ± 0.144 mg/m3) in northwest China
and Chongqing (0.312 ± 0.114 mg/m3) in southwest
China. In the summer, the PM2.5 in Nanjing was lower
than the levels in Beijing (0.117 ± 0.048 mg/m3), Tianjin
(0.103 ± 0.028 mg/m3), Xi’an (0.131 ± 0.059 mg/m3) and
Chongqing (0.116 ± 0.038 mg/m3), comparable to the
levels in Hangzhou (0.091 ± 0.041 mg/m3), but higher
than the levels in other major cities like Shanghai (0.052
± 0.019 mg/m3), Guangzhou (0.049 ± 0.009 mg/m3),
Hong Kong (0.040 ± 0.014 mg/m3) and Xiamen (0.025 ±
0.016 mg/m3).
In general, the PM air pollution is severe in China, es-
pecially when compared with the ambient PM levels in the
United States and European regions.[1–3,38–39] The differ-
ences in the PM pollution levels in these cities are thought
to be related to the higher local emissions and impacts of
regional long-range transport. In the future, it is expected
that the availability of more monitoring data and informa-
tion on PM sources will provide a better understanding
of the dynamic changes between and within cities, thereby
facilitating an effective pollution control strategy.
It was reported that the PM10 levels have tended to de-
cline between 2005 and 2009 in most cities in this region,
In Nanjing, the annual PM10 concentrations ranged be-
tween 0.10 and 0.12 mg/m3 during these 5 years,[40] but
the annual average PM10 level in the present study was
about 0.146 mg/m3, which is higher than the previously
173
reported data. This discrepancy may be explained partly
by the different sampling sites and measurement methods.
Zhao et al.’s study [40] calculated the PM10 based on the Air
Pollution Index (API) reported by the local Environmen-
tal Protection Bureau, whereas we sampled and weighed
the PM10 using quartz fiber filters. API is a dimensionless
index, which is used to describe the air quality in China.
It is similar to the Air Quality Index but only considers
five pollutants, i.e. sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon
monoxide, ozone, and PM10 . Each pollutant is measured
separately and used to calculate a sub-pollution index based
on linear interpolation of the measured concentration be-
tween the grading limits for each air quality classification
criterion. The final API is the highest sub-pollution index.
The method used to measure the API can be found in Qu
et al.,[41] and on the Ministry of Environmental Protection
website.[42] Moreover, only one sampling site was included
in this study, whereas the API reported for a city is usually
based on monitoring data from several sites. The sampling
site was located in one of the fastest developing regions in
the city, so it is not surprising that we detected much higher
pollution levels at the site in the present study compared
with the average level for the whole city.
The ambient PM10 level has been decreasing in the last
few years because of the government’s efforts to reduce
pollution, such as eliminating small coal-fired power plants,
managing heavy pollution industries, substituting natural
gas for coal, and controlling mobile sources.[40,43] However,
it is difficult to know whether there is also a decreasing
trend in the ambient PM2.5 because of a lack of sufficient
representative data. In addition to emissions from local
sources, transport and chemical transformation are other
important factors that affect the air quality, which is an
obvious phenomenon in this region. It has been reported
that air pollutants from southern cities affect downwind
cities via the formation of secondary pollution under strong
radiation conditions during summer, while the long-range
transport of pollutants from the northern area affects the
region more obviously during winter.[44]
Temporal variation
The mean PM2.5 concentrations were 0.146 (0.123–0.170
at 95% CI), 0.089 (0.073–0.105), 0.106 (0.087–0.125), and
0.086 (0.071–0.102) mg/m3 in the four sampling months.
In November 2011, the daily PM2.5 concentrations were all
above the national standard of 0.075 mg/m3. The PM2.5
exceeded the national standard on 57.9, 83.3 and 55.6%
of the days in March, June, and August 2012, respec-
tively. The average 24-h PM10 concentrations were 0.193
(0.161–0.225), 0.138 (0.115–0.161), 0.145 (0.119–0.171) and
0.113 (0.096–0.130) mg/m3 during the four sampling peri-
ods, respectively. The PM10 concentrations exceeded the
national standard on 70.6, 36.8, 33.3 and 22.2% of the days
in each period, respectively.
 174
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Fig. 2. The 24-h average PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations during different sampling months. The data shown are the mean,
median, minimum, maximum, and quartile (25 and 75%) values, and those with statistical significance (P < 0.05) among them are
marked with an asterisk (color figure available online).
The coefficient of variation (COV), which is defined as
the standard derivation divided by the mean, was calcu-
lated to characterize the temporal changes within a month.
The COV values were 23–37% for PM2.5 and 25–33% for
PM10 during the different months. Many factors, such as
local primary emissions, temperature, and wind, which af-
fect the secondary formation, dry/wet deposition, and re-
gional long-range transport, are considered to affect the
daily variances. These factors usually affect the ambient
PM pollution levels simultaneously via complex physical-
chemical mechanisms. It would be interesting to study the
temporal changes and their possible explanation in the fu-
ture based on more monitoring data at a large scale, as well
as the potential use of environmental models.
The results of the ANOVA analysis showed that the dif-
ferences among these four periods were statistically signif-
icant (P < 0.05) for PM2.5 and PM10 . Based on a mul-
tiple comparison test, we found that the PM2.5 loadings
in November and June, which represented the winter and
summer, respectively, were significantly higher than those
in March and August. However, the PM10 was significantly
higher only during the winter compared with the other
three periods (Fig. 2). The more severe fine PM2.5 and
PM10 pollution levels during the winter were associated
with a combination of increased primary emissions from
solid fuel combustion and unfavorable meteorological con-
ditions for pollutant dispersion.[25,45,46] In the summer time
(June in this study), the PM10 concentrations were compa-
rable to the levels in the March and August, whereas PM2.5
was significantly higher. This might be explained partly
by the enhanced secondary formation of PM2.5 during the
summer.[37,47–48] The determination of sources is expected to
help explain the phenomenon observed in the present study.
The weekend effect is of wide interest because it can
provide valuable information that facilitates the evalua-
tion of environmental models, the analysis of the causes of
the pollution, and the development of effective pollution
control strategies.[49,50] There are reduced levels of anthro-
Shen et al.
pogenic primary pollutants at the weekend, such as NO,
NO2 and CO. Ozone level might be higher on the weekend,
which can be explained volatile organic compound (VOC)-
limited ozone formation, carryover of higher emissions of
ozone and the precursors on Friday and Saturday night,
difference in the timing of NOx emission and/or increased
reactivity of VOCs at the weekends.[50,51] The difference in
pollutant concentrations between weekends and weekdays
may be pollutant-, location-, and time-specific.[49,52–54] For
example, insignificant differences in the PM2.5 concentra-
tion have been reported during the weekends and weekdays
in urban areas for some cities. [52,53,55] In New Delhi, it was
even found that in 2002, the PM10 concentration at the
weekends was higher than that on weekdays.[54]
The average PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations for work-
days and weekend days are listed in Table 1. The differences
between workdays and weekend days were not statistically
significant, which suggests that there was no obvious
“weekend effect” in the ambient PM levels in Nanjing
during this study period. It has been reported that the
average visibility in Nanjing was 8.8 and 8.9 km on work-
days and weekend days, respectively, which also suggested
no significant weekend effect.[25] Changes in local sources
and long-range transport can lead to variable ambient PM
concentrations during weekends and weekdays.[49–57]
If people stay at home at the weekends, the lower ve-
hicular activities will produce fewer emissions of primary
pollutants.[52–58] However, this might not always be the case
in many cities.[53,56,59] In addition to insignificant differ-
ences in the PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations, the PM2.5 to
PM10 ratio was also comparable at the weekends (0.73 ±
0.08) and on the weekdays (0.69 ± 0.10). It is considered
that the main sources of PM in the studied site did not
change greatly throughout the sampling period between
the weekdays and the weekends. Unfortunately, we do not
have source information for the ambient PM2.5 and PM10
in Nanjing in the present study, which prevents any fur-
ther discussion of the weekend effect in this context. It is
 Ambient levels and temporal variations of PM2.5 and PM10 in Nanjing 175
Table 1. PM2.5 and PM10 mass concentrations for the workdays and weekends in four sampling periods.
Mar. June Aug. Nov. Overall

PM2.5 , mg/m3
Workday 0.087 ± 0.033 0.104 ± 0.041 0.091 ± 0.034 0.137 ± 0.037 0.104 ± 0.040
Weekend 0.093 ± 0.035 0.111 ± 0.034 0.071 ± 0.017 0.175 ± 0.065 0.111 ± 0.054
P = 0.895 P = 0.514 P = 0.334 P = 0.125 P = 0.594
PM10 , mg/m3
Workday 0.132 ± 0.052 0.143 ± 0.055 0.117 ± 0.036 0.179 ± 0.048 0.142 ± 0.052
Weekend 0.156 ± 0.031 0.152 ± 0.046 0.098 ± 0.021 0.239 ± 0.091 0.161 ± 0.069
P = 0.508 P = 0.961 P = 0.418 P = 0.125 P = 0.594
The difference between workday and weekend was tested using non-parametric Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and statistical P values are also listed.

hoped that the availability of more information on the PM tributed only 64.3% of PM10 , while the PM2.5 fractions
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chemical compositions, its main sources, and the effects of
meteorological conditions will allow the PM weekend effect
to be better characterized.
PM2.5 mass fraction
Figure 3 shows the relationship between PM2.5 and PM10 .
A significantly positive correlation was revealed (P < 0.05),
indicating that the ambient PM2.5 and PM10 were probably
derived from the same source or affected by similar fac-
tors. In generally, PM2.5 contributed about 72.5% of PM10
during the sampling period. The current Chinese National
Standard PM2.5 value is set at half of that for PM10 . Thus,
the day numbers when the PM2.5 concentration exceeded
the standard were often higher than the days when the PM10
offended the standard (73.6 and 40.3% for PM2.5 and PM10 ,
respectively, in the current study).
The PM2.5 mass fraction differed among the four sam-
pling months. In March (springtime), the PM2.5 con-
were 73.0–77.4% in the other months and did not differ
significantly. The significantly lower (P < 0.05) PM2.5 mass
fraction in March is thought to be related to dust transport
from the northwest of China during this season.[35,40] The
results of the backward trajectories also showed that a rel-
atively large fraction of air came from the western area in
March, which diffreed from the air trajectories in the other
sampling periods, as shown in Figure 4.
It is important to identify the sources of the fine PM2.5
and PM10 to better understand the reasons for the severe air
quality deterioration and to facilitate the development of
an effective control strategy for the city. This will require the
analysis of chemical composition of PM, such as the car-
bonaceous carbon fraction, water-soluble ions, elements,
and organic tracers, which can be used to in PM source
apportionment. It would also be useful to analyze the ef-
fects of meteorological conditions on the ambient air pol-
lution. In the future, simultaneous on-line measurements

Fig. 3. Relationships between the PM10 and PM2.5 concentra- Fig. 4. The backward trajectories for the sampling site during
tions during different sampling periods (color figure available different sampling periods. The four cluster means are shown
online). (color figure available online).
 176
of PM and its composition, as well as gaseous air pollu-
tants, would be preferable.
Conclusions
The 24-h average PM mass concentrations in Nanjing were
0.033–0.234 mg/m3 for PM2.5 and 0.042–0.328 mg/m3 for
PM10 . Severe air pollution was detected in the city with
mean daily PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations at about 2.9
and 4.2 times the WHO air quality guideline limits, respec-
tively. No obvious weekend effect was found. There were
clear temporal variations in the PM2.5 and PM10 levels
during different periods. The highest PM10 concentration
was measured during the winter (November), while higher
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PM2.5 levels occurred in the winter (November) and sum-
mer (June). On average, PM2.5 contributed 72.5% of the
total PM10 mass, while a significantly low PM2.5 mass frac-
tion was found in the spring.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this study was supported by China Postdoc-
toral Science Foundation (No. 2013M531322), the Na-
tional Natural Science Foundation (41301554) and the
Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation (BK20131031). We
thank anonymous reviewers for valuable comments.
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