Air quality monitoring and forecasting in China

Introduction For the last decade the industrial activity of China has been growing at rapid pace, bringing economic wealth to its 1300 million inhabitants, but also generating an unprecedented level of air pollution. This deteriorates the air quality of the densely populated and industrialized areas such as Beijing, Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta, and increases the background pollution levels world-wide1). The EU AMFIC project, led by KNMI, kicked off in September 2007 and aims at monitoring and forecasting the air quality in China by using satellite observations and model simulations, together with ground observations from collaborating Chinese institutes. The combination of these instruments and tools offers a unique possibility to investigate trends in air pollution and the effectiveness of air quality policy.