Spatial Patterns in the Extreme Dependence of Ozone Pollution between Cities in China’s BTH Region

Abstract

Ozone pollution in China has become increasingly severe in recent years. Considering the damage that extreme ozone pollution may cause and the fact that the occurrence of extreme ozone pollution among different locations may be related, this paper uses hourly ozone concentration data from national monitoring stations to investigate the co-movement of extreme ozone pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Region. The extreme dependence analysis is adopted to assess such extreme co-movements between different cities. The co-occurrences of extreme ozone pollution at the same time or with certain time differences in the region are analyzed. City groups suffering simultaneous extreme pollution and those where the pollution occurs with certain time differences are identified under certain criteria. Furthermore, the order in which cities experience extreme ozone pollution is determined. With the publication of the New Three-year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky War, our results may be important for improving the joint early-warning and emergency response mechanism at city levels in the BTH Region.