title: Vulnerability assessment of atmospheric environment driven by human impacts.
abstract: Atmospheric environment quality worsening is a substantial threat to public health worldwide, and in many places, air pollution due to the intensification of the human activity is increasing dramatically. However, no studies have been investigated the integration of vulnerability assessment and atmospheric environment driven by human impacts. The objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the undesirable environmental changes as an early warning system for environment managers and decision makers in term of human, atmospheric environment, and social economic elements. We conduct a vulnerability assessment method of atmospheric environment associated with human impact, this method integrates spatial context of Geographic Information System (GIS) tool, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method, ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators under the Exposure-Sensitivity- Adaptive Capacity (ESA) framework. Decision makers can find out relevant vulnerability assessment results with different vulnerable attitudes. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region, China, we further applied this developed method and proved it to be reliable and consistent with the China Environmental Status Bulletin. Results indicate that the vulnerability of atmospheric environment in the BTH region is not optimistic, and environment managers should do more about air pollution. Thus, the most appropriate strategic decision and development program of city or state can be picked out assisting by the vulnerable results.
authors.affiliation: Resources and Environmental Research Academy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Resources and Environmental Research Academy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Appraisal Centre for Environmental and Engineering, Environmental Protection Ministry, Beijing 100012, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Resources and Environmental Research Academy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China. Electronic address: liyuxx8@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D002681:China; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans
keywords: Atmospheric environment; Human impacts; Multi-criteria decision analysis; Ordered weighted averaging operators; Vulnerability assessment