Variation of pollution sources and health effects on air pollution before and during COVID-19 pandemic in Linfen, Fenwei Plain

Stringent pollution control measures are generally applied to improve air quality, especially in the Spring Festival in China. Meanwhile, human activities are reduced significantly due to nationwide lockdown measures to curtail the COVID-19 spreading in 2020. Herein, to better understand the influence of control measures and meteorology on air pollution, this study compared the variation of pollution source and their health risk during the 2019 and 2020 Spring Festival in Linfen, China. Results revealed that the average concentration of PM(2.5) in 2020 decreased by 39.0% when compared to the 2019 Spring Festival. Organic carbon (OC) and SO(4)(2)(-) were the primary contributor to PM(2.5) with the value of 19.5% (21.1%) and 23.5% (25.5%) in 2019 (2020) Spring Festival, respectively. Based on the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model, six pollution sources of PM(2.5) were indicated. Vehicle emissions (VE) had the maximum reduction in pollution source concentration (28.39 μg· m(-)(3)), followed by dust fall (DF) (11.47 μg· m(-)(3)), firework burning (FB) (10.39 μg· m(-)(3)), coal combustion (CC) (8.54 μg· m(-)(3)), and secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA) (3.95 μg· m(-)(3)). However, the apportionment concentration of biomass burning (BB) increased by 78.7%, indicating a significant increase in biomass combustion under control measures. PAHs-lifetime lung cancer risk (ILCR) of VE, CC, FB, BB, and DF, decreased by 44.6%, 43.2%, 34.1%, 21.3%, and 2.0%, respectively. Additionally, the average contribution of meteorological conditions on PM(2.5) in 2020 increased by 20.21% compared to 2019 Spring Festival, demonstrating that meteorological conditions played a crucial role in located air pollution. This study revealed that the existing control measures in Linfen were efficient to reduce air pollution and health risk, whereas more BB emissions were worthy of further attention. Furthermore, the result was conducive to developing more effective control measures and putting more attention into unfavorable meteorological conditions in Linfen.