The compulsory use of dust-proof nets led to significant environmental, health and economic benefits in China

Abstract

In 2017, China launched a regulation on the compulsory coverage of construction wastes with dust-proof nets (DPNs) to mitigate air pollution resulting from urban construction activities. Challenges exist in quantifying how its implementation has mitigated airborne particulate matter (PM) pollution in China. Here we developed a framework combining high-resolution satellite images, machine learning, and an air quality model to identify DPNs and associated PM mitigation across China from 2016 to 2021. The total national DPN area surged significantly since 2017 and peaked in 2019, 9.78 times of that in 2016, especially in North China Plain (NCP). With a simultaneous increase of coverage duration, DPNs caused national PM emission reduction in 2019 was 23 times larger than 2016. Based on the extracted DPN dataset, we employed WRF-Chem regional air quality model to simulate the effects of DPNs on the PM-reduction across China. Next, we calculated that the use of DPNs helped a total of 253.8 million of people exposure to notably improved air quality and 26,836 people (95% CI: 23,630-30,041) avoided premature mortalities from 2017 to 2021. Accordingly, we quantified the economic benefits from DPNs use arcoss China reached 20.7 billion based on the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) model. Large potential remains for DPN use in China. The national DPN coverage could additionally increase by 3.3 times if DPN coverage rate in NCP would transfer to the entire country.