Co-benefit potential of urban CO2 and air quality monitoring: A study on the first mobile campaign and building monitoring experiments in Seoul during the winter

Özet

For the first time, mobile campaign and building monitoring experiments were conducted in downtown Seoul,Korea during the 2018/2019 winter period to assess the possibility of the co-benefit of CO2 emission reductionand air quality improvement. Given that CO2 and air pollutants in cities both originate from fossil fuel combustion, monitoring urban CO2 concentrations using a mobile vehicle and from the top of tall buildings can be apotentially effective approach for diagnosing the air quality. The local enhancement values (△species) related tourban emission sources were estimated by eliminating baseline concentrations. The results obtained showedhigh correlation coefficients between △CO2 and △air pollutants (i.e., 0.753, 0.505, and 0.525 for △CO,△NOX, and △NO2), confirming the applicability of CO2 as an indicator of air pollutant sources in downtownSeoul. The evaluation of the air quality in the study area using air pollutant ratios, including the ratios of CO andNOX/NO2, relative to CO2 showed that the ratios of △CO, △NOX, and △NO2 relative to △CO2 were 5.76, 1.89,and 0.21 ppb ppm−1. The estimated △NO2/△NOX ratio (11%) and a comparison of the △NOX/△CO2 ratiosobtained with those reported for other cities in different countries suggested the possibility of a relationshipbetween the current air quality in downtown Seoul and the use of diesel vehicles. Results suggest that thedevelopment of municipal policies aimed at mitigating climate change should consider the co-benefit of airquality improvement so as to ensure the effective reduction of CO2 and air pollutant emissions.