Spatial-temporal variability of PM2.5 concentration in Xuzhou based on satellite remote sensing and meteorological data

Accurate estimation of the spatiotemporally continuous distribution of PM2.5 concentration is of great significance for the research on atmospheric pollution. The effect of aerosol characteristics such as aerosol types was seldom considered in PM2.5 estimation in previous studies. In this manuscript, authors applied an aerosol classification-based method to generate ground-level PM2.5 concentration datasets in Xuzhou from 2014 to 2017. The coefficient of determination (R2) of aerosol classification-based model increases from 0.57 to 0.61 verified by ground station measurements, comparing to the empirical model. The results of spatiotemporal analysis show that the PM2.5 concentration has a slowly decreased trend in last three years, despite has an extreme high value in the winter of 2016 due to the heavy haze pollution occurred in Xuzhou. With regard to the spatial distribution of estimated PM2.5 over Xuzhou, there is a high-PM2.5 area anchoring over the urban district, while low concentration occurs in county town. Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.