Air Quality and Health in China

China is the biggest producer and consumer of coal in the world. In 2005, the total production of coal reached 2.11 billion tons and total consumption of coal reached 2.14 billion tons. More than 70% of the total energy in China is produced from coal combustion. This trend is expected to continue for the next 50 or more years. A consequence is that serious air pollution problems, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and other heavy metals (e.g., mercury and arsenic), have arisen from this dependence on coal.

For example, Huainan City in Anhui Province has a coal reserve of 44.4 billion tons, which is 32% of the reserve in Eastern China and 19% of the total of the country. Huainan is an industrial city and an important Chinese energy base relying on coal, electric power, and chemical industries. The total quantity of Huainan coal consumption in 2004 was 12 million tons, making up 90% of the city’s energy consumption. The production of industrial liquid, solid, and gas wastes from coal use makes up about 98% of the city’s industrial pollution emissions. In 2004, the total for air emissions was 97 billion m³, which included 92,300 tons of sulfur dioxide and 36,000 tons of smoke-dust. The annual average concentration value of sulfur dioxide was 0.024 mg/m³ per day, nitrogen oxide was 0.026 mg/m³ per day, and PM10 (hazardous particulate matter) was 0.111 mg/m³ per day. Each of these emission contents reached the Chinese Grade II (moderately deteriorated) pollution level.

Huainan’s ambient air quality continues to deteriorate with increased coal consumption as the city undergoes urbanization and industrial development at an unprecedented scale. This also causes serious public health problems for local residents, such as allergic asthma (impacting up to 2% of the total population); chronic bronchitis (impacting up to 2% of the population); conjunctivitis (responsible for up to 20% of eye illness); coryza (impacting up to 2% of the population). In addition, large numbers of people suffer from occupational diseases related to air toxin exposure.

Our partners at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholar's China Environment Forum (CEF) have composed a research brief concerning coal mining and environmental health in China. Please click here to learn more.