title: Mercury emissions from biomass burning in China.
abstract: Biomass burning covers open fires (forest and grassland fires, crop residue burning in fields, etc.) and biofuel combustion (crop residues and wood, etc., used as fuel). As a large agricultural country, China may produce large quantities of mercury emissions from biomass burning. A new mercury emission inventory in China is needed because previous studies reflected outdated biomass burning with coarse resolution. Moreover, these studies often adopted the emission factors (mass of emitted species per mass of biomass burned) measured in North America. In this study, the mercury emissions from biomass burning in China (excluding small islands in the South China Sea) were estimated, using recently measured mercury concentrations in various biomes in China as emission factors. Emissions from crop residues and fuelwood were estimated based on annual reports distributed by provincial government. Emissions from forest and grassland fires were calculated by combining moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area product with combustion efficiency (ratio of fuel consumption to total available fuels) considering fuel moisture. The average annual emission from biomass burning was 27 (range from 15.1 to 39.9) Mg/year. This inventory has high spatial resolution (1 km) and covers a long period (2000-2007), making it useful for air quality modeling.
authors.affiliation: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, Department of Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Mengmeng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hans R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Friedli
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Di
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D018533:Biomass; D002681:China; D005390:Fires; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis*; D008962:Models, Theoretical
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D008628:Mercury