Application of Mobile Monitoring to Study Characteristics of Air Pollution in Typical Areas of the Yangtze River Delta Eco-Green Integration Demonstration Zone, China
, Yu Xu 1, Fanghong Zhao 1, Jie Yang 1, Liping Qiao 2, Lan Yao 1,2,3,* and Weiyue Li 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Reviewer’s comments:
I have some comments on your paper titled “Application of mobile monitoring to study characteristics of air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta integration demonstration zone, China”. Although your paper topic is interesting and this work has a potential to contribute to the literature on environment management and sustainability, some parts are still weak. Author(s) are suggested to revise the paper before considering publishing by the journal.
Specific comments:
1. Please expand on the Method Section. For example, please elaborate on the device you introduced for measuring and monitoring air quality and explain why you chose this instrument. I expect to see some pictures of this instrument. Some pricing information for this device is also important and useful for international readers who want to replicate the method in their own country.
2. Please make Figure 2 clearer because the current images make it difficult for us to see.
3. Your paper lacks a Discussion Section, which makes your work less interesting. Hence, the author(s) should address this point. Please highlight and discuss the instrument’s advantages and disadvantages. Please also demonstrate and discuss the theoretical and practical contributions of your work in this paper.
4. In the revised version, please include the Limitation Section accordingly.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this manuscript, the author selected Qingxi Country Park and Zhujiajiao Ancient Town to conduct mobile monitoring of air pollutants. The concentration and spatial distribution of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 were obtained. Temporal variations of pollutants were discussed and emission sources were identified. The content of the article is substantial and the structure is complete. Therefore, I think this manuscript could be accepted after some revision. The detail comments are listed following:
1. The title does not agree with the content. The title is about the whole Yangtze River Delta Eco-Green Integration Demonstration Zone, but the study focuses on only Qingxi Country Park and Zhujiajiao Ancient Town in Qingpu District, Shanghai.
2. Part 2.1. should be more concise and organized.
3. In Part 2.3., what does “O3 obtained by the portable sensor monitor agreed well with that of monitoring station, with slope of 0.99 and R2 of 0.96.”mean? Is O3 more important in this study.
4. Some representative references about mobile sensors and air pollution are recommended to be cited, such as Environ. Pollut. 2017, 223, 102-110, Transp. Res. D Transp. Environ. 2022, 113, 103535, Atmospheric Environ. 2022, 272, 118936, Adv. Mater. 2020, 32, 2002361, ACS Nano 2019, 13, 13501-13512, etc.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
A mobile observation of atmospheric pollutants in a country park and in an ancient town as typical areas in the Demonstration Zone was undertaken in the given study.
It is an interesting research based on Chinese equipment: a portable air quality sensor network monitor (XHAQSN-806M, SailHero Inc, China) was used to simultaneously measure PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, O3, CO, temperature, and humidity in atmospheric environment, with time resolution of 5 s. Individual particle samples were analyzed by SEM (Hitachi S-4800, Japan) to obtain the surface morphology and size of aerosol particles.
It would be nice to add references to the mentioned equipment where their characteristics are described.
It was shown in the paper that the results from spatial distribution, comparison between weekdays and weekends, and daily temporal variation of pollutants indicate that the concentration change of pollutants is closely related to human activities. Morphology analysis detected aerosol particles with small size and complicated compositions, including fresh soot, aged soot, organics, fly ash and S-rich particles, which implied complex origins of pollutants in the studied areas.
The quality control is well documented and the data appears to be reliable.
As a conclusion, the authors stated that agricultural irrigation, household solid fuels, open-air cooking, coal combustion for cooking and frequent redecoration of stores were the emission sources in the study area. Environmentally friendly agricultural irrigation ways and cleaner cooking fuels were suggested to further improve air quality and reduce health risks in the Demonstration Zone.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
