Monitoring and Analysis of Effect of Project “Replacing Coal With Electricity” Improving Atmospheric Environmental Quality in Mentougou District, Beijing

Coal consumption in the rural areas of Beijing severely affects air quality of the region. The government has unfolded a movement entitled "Reducing Coal Consumption and Replacing Coal to Clean the Air", with the project of "Replacing Coal with Electricity" as representative in the rural areas of Beijing in an attempt to clean the air and reduce the pollution of smoke from coal burning. For scientific evaluation of effects of the project on regional air environmental quality, Dongmagezhuang Village and Xishiguyan Village in Wangping Town of Mentougou District were picked as two cases for study, one representing areas before unfolding of the project and the other representing areas after implementation of the project. Comparison was made between the two, in concentration of pollutants in the air, such as PM_2.5、PM₁₀、SO₂ and NO₂ for analysis of effects of the project reducing pollutant emission into the atmosphere. Results show that Dongmagezhuang Village was 44.90%, 24.75%, 20.41% and 26.67% lower respectively, than Xishiguyan Village in concentration of PM_2.5, PM₁₀, SO₂ and NO₂, and mass concentration of PM_2.5, PM₁₀, SO₂ and NO₂, in the heating season was 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 1.4 times as high as their respective one in the non-heating season. All the findings in the study demonstrate that the project improved the regional air quality, generating better environmental benefits, like lowering PM_2.5 concentration in the air. It is, therefore, suggested that supervisory management of coal consumption in the rural areas should be strengthened in the future. And in addition to the consolidation of the beneficial effects of the project, more efforts should be devoted to intensification of government guidance using policies and steady extrapolation of the project in scale.