Contribution of on-road transportation to PM2.5
Chao Li, Shunsuke Managi
Abstract
Abstract Fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) mainly originates from combustion emissions. On-road transportation is considered one of the primary sources of PM 2.5 emission. The relationship between on-road transportation and PM 2.5 concentration varies temporally and spatially, and the estimation for this variation is important for policymaking. Here, we reveal the quantitative association of PM 2.5 concentration with on-road transportation by the spatial panel Durbin model and the geographical and temporal weighted regression. We find that 6.17 billion kilometres (km) per km 2 on-road transportation increase is associated with a 1-μg/m 3 county-level PM 2.5 concentration increase in the contiguous United States. On-road transportation marginally contributes to PM 2.5 , only 1.09% on average. Approximately 3605 premature deaths are attributed to PM 2.5 from on-road transportation in 2010, and about a total of 50,223 premature deaths ascribe to PM 2.5 taking 6.49% from 2003 to 2016. Our findings shed light on the necessity of the county-level policies considering the temporal and spatial variability of the relationship to further mitigate PM 2.5 from on-road transportation.