A satellite-based method and application for identifying high ozone production area

Over recent years, ozone pollution has become a prominent issue in China. To perpetuate the improvement of environmental quality in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Region and its surrounding areas and Fen-Wei Plain, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment launched the Thousand Miles Eye Program to build a grid-based air pollution monitoring system. In 2020, to address the ozone pollution problem during the summer months, a study was conducted to identify high ozone production area and pushed anomaly environmental information to the environmental authorities in key regions and the onsite inspection and assistance teams, thus providing important support for winning the blue sky defense war. Based on the data from Sentinel-5P satellite, and combined with the enterprise data inventories, electricity consumption data, pollution source inspection records, and so on, high ozone production areas were identified and located through the RFM model. The findings of the study showed that most urban areas and industrial clusters in the BTH region and Fen-Wei Plain were located within VOC-control areas or VOC-NO_x-cooperative control areas. The problem rate of high ozone production areas pushed by the method was 65.3%, 21.5 percentage points higher than the overall problem rate. The problem rate among enterprises in high ozone production areas was 27.1%, 3.7 percentage points higher than those in non-high ozone production areas. This methodology improved the efficacy of inspection and assistance in ozone pollution inspection and control during the summer of 2020. The problem rate of high ozone production areas and the problem rate of enterprises in high ozone production areas were correlated with the times of push notifications of high ozone production areas; and the practice results showed that after repeated pushes of such notifications, the rate of problematic enterprises in high ozone production areas showed a pattern of rising first before falling, and the inflection point of the problem rate of enterprises was correlational to their cycle of rectification. This methodology proves more effective with industrial clusters dominated by packaging printing and industrial painting businesses.