In this study, the contributions of emissions (foreign and domestic) and atmospheric physical and chemical processes to PM2.5 concentrations were evaluated during a high PM2.5 episode (March 24-26, 2018) observed on the Jeju Island in the spring of 2018. These analyses were performed using the community multi-scale air quality (CMAQ) modeling system using the brute-force method and integrated process rate (IPR) analysis, respectively. The contributions of domestic emissions from South Korea (41-45%) to PM2.5 on the Jeju Island were lower than those (81-89%) of long-range transport (LRT) from China. The substantial contribution of LRT was also confirmed in conjunction with the air mass trajectory analysis, indicating that the frequency of airflow from China (58-62% of all trajectories) was higher than from other regions (28-32%) (e.g., South Korea). These results imply that compared to domestic emissions, emissions from China have a stronger impact than domestic emissions on the high PM2.5 concentrations in the study area. From the IPR analysis, horizontal transport contributed substantially to PM2.5 concentrations were dominant in most of the areas of the Jeju Island during the high PM2.5 episode, while the aerosol process and vertical transport in the southern areas largely contributed to higher PM2.5 concentrations.

This study analyzed the characteristics of high PM2.5 episodes that meets the concentration criteria of Emergency Reduction Measures Plan (ERMP) in Busan during the 2015-2020, and compared with those in Seoul. As a first step, the CAPSS-2017 emission data was employed to analyze the emission differences between Busan and Seoul, and pointed out that Busan emission included the dominance of ship emissions (37.7%) among total PM2.5 city emissions, whereas fugitive PM2,5 emission was the highest in Seoul. These emission characteristics are indicating that the controlling action plan should be uniquely applied to cope with ERMP in each region. We selected extremely high PM2.5 episode days that meet the criteria of ERMP levels. In Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam region, 15, 16, and 8 days of extremely high PM2.5 cases were found, respectively, whereas Seoul showed approximately doubling of occurrences with 37 cases. However, the occurrences in summer season indicated big differences between two cities: the proportion of summer-season occurrence was 13-25% in Busan, whereas no single case have occurred in Seoul. This is suggesting the needs of comprehensive summer emission reduction plan with focusing on sulfur reduction to effectively cope with the ERMP levels in summer in the southeastern region, including Busan.