A Study On Estimation Methods Of Regional At-mospheric Environmental Carrying Capacity

Along with the fast economic improvement and urbanization, the regional atmospheric problem has become worse and worse, which makes regional atmospheric environmental carrying capacity (RAECC for short) estimation an urgent technical problem. However, there is no coincident view on the theory of RAECC and the estimation methods are confused, which makes it's difficult to carry out the work in reality.This paper proposes two RAECC estimation methods based on the extant research, one is called "estimation method of RAECC based on the environ-mental capacity" which taking air pollutants as object, and the other is called "estimation method of RAECC based on the social-economic activity" which taking human social-economic activity as object.In the estimation method of RAECC based on the environmental capacity, a method which combines the traditional box-model method, simulation method and linear programming method is proposed according to the feature of regional complex air pollution. The based idea of this method is that: the emission sources are classified into different source units according to the site and height of them. The linear programming method searches the maximum capacity and optimal allocation of the RAECC. The box-model method ensures the local air quality in sub-regions meet certain targets. The simulation method limits precursor emissions which cause secondary pollution in the regional scale. Results from the last two methods act as restrictions of the linear pro-gramming method. The integrated method makes the three traditional methods to be complementary, and therefore has three significant merits:First, it con-siders both local and regional influences of pollution sources. Second, it con-siders both direct and secondary effects of the pollutants. Finally, it can give optimal schemes for the pollutants emission allocation over different sub-regions.In the estimation method of RAECC based on the social-economic activity, the emission sources are classified into different source units by the "Re-gion-Sector-Type" principle, and then a large-scale linear programming model is constructed. In this model, the economic-technical limits of source units and environmental effect caused by pollutants emission are taken as restrictions. The linear and quasilinear relationship between the pollutants emission and environmental effect is simulated by air quality model.A case study indicates that these two RAECC estimation methods are reasonable and feasible; they can be applied under the different conditions.