Development and Assessment of a High-Resolution Biogenic Emission Inventory from Urban Green Spaces in China

Abstract

Biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions have long been known to play vital roles in modulating the formation of ozone and secondary organic aerosols (SOAs). While early studies have evaluated their impact globally or regionally, the BVOC emissions emitted from urban green spaces (denoted as U-BVOC emissions) have been largely ignored primarily due to the failure of low-resolution land cover in resolving such processes, but also because their important contribution to urban BVOCs was previously unrecognized. In this study, by utilizing a recently released high-resolution land cover dataset, we develop the first set of emission inventories of U-BVOCs in China at spatial resolutions as high as 1 km. This new dataset resolved densely distributed U-BVOCs in urban core areas. The U-BVOC emissions in megacities could account for a large fraction of total BVOC emissions, and the good agreement of the interannual variations between the U-BVOC emissions and ozone concentrations over certain regions stresses their potentially crucial role in influencing ozone variations. The newly constructed U-BVOC emission inventory is expected to provide an improved dataset to enable the research community to re-examine the modulation of BVOCs on the formation of ozone, SOA, and atmospheric chemistry in urban environments.