740 Environmental Science 8 Technology
0013-936X/81/0915-0740$01.25/0 @ 1981 Ametican Chemical Society
In the summer of 1980, 14 U.S. scientists made person-toperson contacts with their counterparts in six cities in the People’s Republic of China. Here are some impressions f r o m that visit, which lasted just over two weeks.
Leonard Newman Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, N.Y. 11973 Visit a country for a week and you learn all there is to know about it; stay for a year and realize how little you really know. With a population approaching one billion, China is a complex country consisting of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, and three municipalities, and all have some jurisdiction over environmental protection. China held its first National Conference on Environmental Protection in 1973. Its purpose was to emphasize the necessity of protecting the environment. As a result, representatives were sent to foreign countries to study and gather information. A group of legal experts and environmentalists was then convened to draft a comprehensive environmental law. This draft was presented to the People’s Congress, and in 1979 a national law was finally approved and put into practice. Not all the provinces have followed the national example by passing their own environmental protection laws. The law does not establish concrete regulations, but it sets a tone. Industrialization cannot occur in residential or scenic areas; existing pollution sources must be controlled; and, when necessary, technological innovations must be adopted to prevent emissions. Fines for noncompliance can be imposed by government agencies. Without question China is serious about environmental protection. However, the Chinese are also enthusiastic about their doctrine of the “Four Modernizations,” which includes agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. All are to be accomplished by the year 2000, but it is not clear what portion of their precious resources can be diverted from development to environmental protection. Nonetheless, concern for the environment is evident. Two years ago, the Chinese Society of Environmental Sciences was founded; now there are almost 30 local societies throughout
the country. Additional evidence of their interest was the overwhelming response from technical leaders and research workers to a visit brought about not through bureaucratic arrangements but through personal contacts. Some people made a day’s journey from the surrotmding areas to meet with us. In view of the relatively recent emphasis on guarding environmental quality on a national scale, our group was continually amazed at the progress that has occurred over the past three to five years. The Chinese jumped from far behind right into the frontiers of science. Technical organizations have been established; environmental monitoring is performed within the major industrial and population centers; atmospheric boundary layers are studied to evaluate pollutant transport on regional scales; arid emission control systems have been installed in a number of factories. The progress is remarkable, when one considers the political and economic turmoil China found itself in during the Cultural Revolution, which essentially impeded most scientific research from about 1966 to the midseventies. During that time, many technically educated people were transferred to the rural areas and the universities were closed. As a result, many of the practicing scientists are in their sixties and seventies. There is a great shortage of younger scientists, but they are beginning to join the ranks. About 40 universities now teach courses in environmental science within the framework of biology, chemistry, and geology departments, and a high proportion of the students are women. Beijing University is unquestionably the No. 1 university in the country (when you ask for the second best, opinions differ), and many of the most prominent scientists originate from there. In addition, Beijing appears to be favored in that its facilities have the best equipment and more scientists have access to the international literature. Beijing and Shanghai universities and institutes are probably examples of the best they have to offer;
the facilities in other cities are probably not as good. Much work still needs to be done, as evidenced by the number of smokestacks emitting dense black smoke over urban areas. However, their desire to protect the enviroriment will face stiff competition from a massive plan to produce and use more coal in order to increase their industrial capacity. The principal air quality issues facing China are particle and sulfur dioxide emissions from coal combustion, which is used extensively for power production, industrial operations, and home cooking and heating. Presently there is stronger interest in adopting technologies to reduce emissions than in understanding the subsequent transformations that occur in the environment. China’s scientists are anxious to learn from experiences in the U.S. I have already had reciprocal visits from scientists of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, the Institute of Environmental Chemistry, and the Academy Committee for Coordinating Environmental Programs, and will soon welcome a scholar from the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center who will work with us for two years. A list of topics for discussion (Table 1) was presented to us upon arrival. The list is indicative of both their interests and their expectations of us.
Beijing Monitoring Center Mr. Chu Huiming, director of the center, extended a welcome to the group. Also in attendance were Wu Pengming (deputy director) and Liang Xiyuan (head, Instrumentation Laboratory). The Beijing center was established in 1974 and regular environmental monitoring began in 1975; present quarters were completed in 1977. Initial monitoring efforts were restricted to water quality analysis, but air quality monitoring followed shortly thereafter. The jurisdiction of the center covers Beijing proper and its environs (an area of 16 800 km2). The center employs a total of 158 people, 100 of whom are in technical areas. Volume 15, Number 7, July 1981
741
During the visit the group met scientists In SIX cities
, izhou
iochow)
Shanghai
The administrative structure of the center is divided into seven departments: air monitoring (includes noise) water monitoring (includes soil) instrumentation development environmental quality assessments (“comprehensive analysis”) information retrieval and dissemination (library) management office for technical affairs administrative offices. The main tasks of the center are to organize and coordinate all the departments and organizations performing environmental quality measurements, carry out extensive monitoring and data analysis, organize exchanges between technical people at the center and their counterparts at universities and institutes of the Academia Sinica, and foster and conduct technical information exchanges between China and other countries. The center is empowered to organize and coordinate all the various local and state monitoringsites. A few iron, steel, and petrochemical firms have established their own monitoring stations and the center regularly receives data from them, but it does not perform periodic, independent checks of the equipment. The Environmental Protection Office (equivalent to the EPA) has the right to impose sanctions if accepted standards are violated. This office is headed by Ms. Chiang Hsiaoke of The Revolutionary Committee of the Beijing Municipality. Her colleagues Wu Pengming and 742
Environmental Science 8 Technology
Chang Liangpi are associated with the Beijing Monitoring Center. At the center. 14 parameters are periodically measured: Sol, NO,, CO. 0 3 , panicles, oxidants, total hydrocarbons, THC, CH4, C2H2. temperature, humidity, and wind direction and speed. I n addition, two mobile monitoring stations are available. It is reported that Beijing’s air pollution is worst during the winter, when the concentration of sulfur oxides and particles is quite high; the annual average for total suspended particles (TSPs) is 0.150 mg/m3 with an observed maximum of 0.500 mg/m’. The main source of air pollution comes from heating homes with coal containing 0.5-3%sulfur. The center’s Central Committee has recently ordered that Beijing be made ”more liveable” and, as a result, conversion from coal to I s s polluting fuels, such as oil, is being encouraged. In the future, the center plans toestablish 30 stations in Beijing and its environs to continuously monitor air quality. Mast of the funding for the stations will come from the central government: local governments will pay only a small fraction. The educational background of the center’s scientists and engineers seemed excellent and the employees capable and interested. On the other hand, the technical workersare new to their tasks and need a great deal of training to develop their skills. In general, the laboratories seemed well equipped in terms of chcmicals and glassware. A rather sophisticated
level of instrumentation was apparent, but all were of foreign manufacture (Japanese, American, Danish), with the exception of a Chinese gas chromatograph. The instruments are serviced completely in-house. Some analyses being carried out were on mercury, pesticides, fluoride, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, noise levels, microorganisms, and heavy metals in water, soil, and air. Specific instruments and areas of study include: research on plyaromatic hydrocarbon separation and quantitation using HPLC and thin-layer chromatography performed on a Varian 8500 equipped with fluorescence and IR detectors. Traditional methods of extraction, concentration, and GC analysis noise monitoring and analysis using a Bruel-Kjaer instrument aerosol instrument calibration using a Berglund-Liu generator (Dr. Liu was a member of our group.) pesticide analysis with a GC equipped with electron-capture and photometric detectors heavy-metal analysis with a Perkin-Elmer 503 atomic absorption spectrometer hydrocarbons in water using a GC equipped with a flame ionization detector. Institute of Atmospheric Physies Prof. J. Winchester (Florida State University), an American colleague of mine, was in China doing research on the origin and chemistry of aerosols. He greeted our group along with Tao Shiyen, deputy director of the institute, and Zhou Mingyu, head of Boundary Layer Meteorology. The Institute of Atmospheric Physics consists of seven laboratories that each specialize in one of the following specific areas: remote sensing, dynamic meteorology, cloud precipitation, boundary layer meteorology, long-range weather prediction, severe weather systems, or climate dynamics. The laboratories employ 20 professors and 350 scientists and engineers. We visited the Boundary Layer Meteorology Laboratory, which utilizes the talents of 80 scientists and engineers. The programs are mainly designed to improve their general understandingof boundary layer physics, although some effort (about 1W) is directed toward specific industrial pollution problems. The scope of their research areas is defined by the Academia Sinica, but there is considerable input from the scientific staff at the laboratories.
Our visit included an overview of their meteorological measurement systems. At their facilities, located on the outskirts of Beijing, is a 325-m meteorological tower instrumented at 15 levels. Each level includes measurments of wind velocity and temperature. Turbulence measurements were made at two levels with sonic anemometers, although no attempt was made to derive sigma values from the wind direction measurements. The data from these instruments were displayed on strip chart recorders and were digitized electronically for subsequent analysis. In addition, we were shown facsimile records from a monostatic acoustic sounder operating just outside the laboratory building. These records showed the typical diurnal changes in the inversion heights as well as the usual multiple layers displaying different temperature characteristics within the complex boundary layer. We were quite impressed with the level of sophistication in their meteorological instrumentation. Practically all of the instrumentation had been built in China and was of high quality. Integrated circuits were widely incorporated into the electronics. Most of the instrumentation had characteristics similar to corresponding US. products. For instance, the cup anemometers on the tower were of the low-threshold type (
