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The Wind-Frequency Allocation Method on Discharge
Loading of Function Zones
Bin Xu a , Tingyao Gao a , Chenyan Hu b & Jiekuan Shi b
a School of Environmental Science and Engineering , Tongji University , Shanghai , China
b College of Environmental Engineering and Science , Donghua University , Shanghai , China
Published online: 27 Dec 2011.
To cite this article: Bin Xu , Tingyao Gao , Chenyan Hu & Jiekuan Shi (2002) The Wind-Frequency Allocation Method
on Discharge Loading of Function Zones, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 52:6, 714-718, DOI:
10.1080/10473289.2002.10470810
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Xu, Gao, Hu, and Shi
TECHNICAL PAPER
ISSN 1047-3289 J. Air & Waste Manage. Assoc. 52:714-718
Copyright 2002 Air & Waste Management Association
The Wind-Frequency Allocation Method on Discharge
Loading of Function Zones
Bin Xu and Tingyao Gao
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Chenyan Hu andJiekuan Shi
College of Environmental Engineering and Science, Donghua University, Shanghai, China
ABSTRACT
to each atmospheric pollution source. Most importantly,
This paper introduces a new allocation method on dis-
charge loading of each function zone in a total emission
control region. The wind frequency, the position of each
district, and the pollutant’s influence area were taken into
account in this new method. The concept of “average
downwind distance” was brought forward in this paper.
The method here is more reasonable than the original
method of area distribution, which was proposed by the
“A-value” method in regulation of total emissions in
China, by means of the simulation of annual average con-
centration in the total emission control region.
the quality of the entire region should conform to the
atmospheric quality standard.
In recent years, with the rapid development of the
economy, many new cities and exploitation regions have
been built quickly. Establishing an atmospheric environ-
mental utilization plan on the basis of environmental
capacity in the preliminary development stage is the key
task of atmospheric protection. As a result, it can supply a
scientific reference for industry compliance, especially for
the industries discharging atmospheric pollutants.
In China, the popular method of total emission con-
trol is the “A-value” method, which was recommended
by the Chinese National Environmental Protection Agency
(NEPA) in “The Technological Guideline to Institute the
Local Atmospheric Pollutants Emission Standards.”2 The
discharge loading can be calculated conveniently if the
area of the controlling region, the local A-value coeffi-
cient, and the environmental protection object are con-
firmed. In this method, the discharge loading of each
function zone is calculated by the ratio of the area be-
tween the function zone and the controlling region. In
this way, the concentration of pollutant cannot be well
proportioned in the whole region. On one hand, the con-
centration of pollutant in certain areas is very high, even
higher than the standard value. On the other hand, the
concentration is very low in other areas. This paper dis-
cusses why these problems happen and how to solve
them. Finally, a new method was advanced to modify the
A-value method.
INTRODUCTION
In atmospheric environment planning, the atmospheric
environment capacity and the best scheme for exploi-
tation and utilization are determined according to in-
vestigation and research on the local atmospheric
environmental status, the objects of atmospheric envi-
ronmental quality management, and the distribution
characteristics of pollution sources.1 There are two steps
to carrying out total emission control in China. First,
the discharge loading of pollutant in the planning re-
gion should be calculated according to atmospheric ca-
pacity. Second, the discharge loading should be
distributed to each function zone in the region and then
IMPLICATIONS
In the improved allocation method on discharge loading
of each function zone in a total emission control region,
the meteorological characteristics and the pollutant’s in-
fluence area were taken into consideration. To some de-
gree, this made up for the defect of the A-value method
recommended by the Chinese National Environmental
Protection Agency (NEPA) for total emission control. This
approach also can be used to supply a reference for in-
dustry compliance, especially for the industries discharg-
ing atmospheric pollutants.
METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE
PERMITTED DISCHARGE LOADING OF
EACH FUNCTION ZONE
The A-Value Method for Area
Ratio Distribution
In the total emission control region, the discharge load-
ing can be calculated as follows:
714 Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association
Volume 52 June 2002

Xu, Gao, Hu, and Shi
Q = A(Cs − C0) S × 106 /3.1536
(1)
upwind of the least wind direction, it should allocate more
discharge loading. If the function zone lies downwind of
the main wind direction, it should have more discharge
loading, because the pollutant can be discharged out of
the total emission control region quickly by means of wind
diffusion and transportation.
where Q is permitted discharge loading in mg/sec of total
emission control region; A is the local A-value coefficient;
Cs is the environmental protection object in mg/m3; C0 is
the environmental background concentration in mg/m3;
and S is the area of total emission control region in km2.
The permitted discharge loading of each function
zone can be calculated in A-value method as follows:
From the aforementioned allocation rules, it can be
deduced that the main influencing factors of correction
coefficient are wind direction, wind frequency, and the
position of the district. A conception of “average down-
wind distance” is put forward in this paper. It can be de-
fined as the sum of the product of the wind frequency
and the downwind distance of this wind from north to
north-by-northwest. The average downwind distance of
the function zone can be expressed as follows:
NNW
Qi = A(Cs − C0)Si × 106 /(3.1536 × S)
(2)
where Qi is the permitted discharge loading of the i func-
tion zone in mg/sec; and Si is the area of the function zone i.
The previous formula has the following relationship:
n
Li =
(fm × li,m)
m=N
Q =
Qi
(3)
(8)
∑
∑
i=1
where n is the number of function zones in the total emis-
where Li is the average downwind distance of the i func-
tion zone in meters; m is one of 16 wind directions,
including north, north-by-northeast, northeast,… north-
by-northwest; ƒm is the wind frequency of m wind direc-
tion in percentage; and li,m is the downwind distance from
the source to the borderline of total emission control re-
gion under m wind in meters.
sion control region.
The New Method on Allocation
in Each Function Zone
The permitted discharge loading can be allocated in each
function zone by means of the previous method. However,
many actual factors (e.g., the meteorological condition, the
position of each function zone, etc.) cannot be taken into
consideration. Therefore, the result is not reasonable. In
this paper, a modified model is proposed as follows:
Because there are many pollution sources in each
function zone, the downwind distance of the function
zone cannot be calculated expediently. To solve that prob-
lem, all the sources in the function zone can be regarded
as a point source with a certain height on the assumption
that all pollutants are discharged in the point source. In
this way, the average downwind distance of each func-
tion zone can be calculated easily. The longer average
downwind distance the function zone has, the less per-
mitted discharge loading the function zone should be
allocated, because of the large area of influence. The func-
tion zone, having a short average downwind distance,
should be allocated more permitted discharge loading. The
correction coefficient βi can be calculated as follows:
(4)
(5)
Qti = βi × Qi
n
Q =
Qti
∑
i=1
n
(6)
(7)
(1− βi) = 0
∑
i=1
βi ≥ 0
where Qti is the permitted discharge loading of the func-
tion zone i after modification in mg/sec, and βi is the cor-
rection coefficient of the function zone i.
The main problem in the new method is calculating
the correction coefficient. The correction coefficient
should conform to the following rules. If the function
zone lies upwind of the main wind direction, the permit-
ted discharge loading
n
n
βi = 1+(
L2i − nL2i )
L2i
(9)
∑
∑
i=1
i=1
Eq 9 adopts the mean of quadratic allocation. It can
be explained that, after the discharge from source, the con-
centration of pollutants decreased because of the diffusion
Table 1. The wind frequency of the Shanghai Longhua meteorological station in China.
should be decreased,
because its pollutant
influences large areas
in the total emission
control region. For
the same reason, if
the function zone lies
Wind Direction
Wind Frequency
Wind Direction
Wind Frequency
N
NNE
4.95
SSW
5.15
NE
6.32
SW
ENE
6.39
WSW
1.92
E
ESE
8.17
WNW
9.20
SE
12.48
NW
SSE
7.76
NNW
5.84
8.17
S
8.85
W
2.62
2.55
3.72
5.91
Volume 52 June 2002
Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 715

Xu, Gao, Hu, and Shi
conform to “Comprehensive Emission Standard of Air
Pollutants” (GB16297-1996).4 The position of these point
sources can be seen in Figure 2.
Simulation of Annual Mean Concentration
under the Area Ratio Distribution
According to the A-value method, the permitted dis-
charge loading of SO2 in this region is 143,836 mg/sec,
on the condition that the background concentration is
ignored. The total permitted discharge loading was dis-
tributed to each function zone, all of which have the
same 3396 mg/sec. The height of all point sources is
30 m, according to GB16297-1996, and other param-
eters of these point sources were adopted by experience.
The simulation of the annual mean concentration of
SO2 by the atmospheric diffusion model1,5-8 can be
shown in Figures 3 and 4.
Figure 1. The rose diagram of wind frequency (%).
and transportation in the atmosphere. Because of the dif-
fusion process, the main area of influence on the ground
is a fan-shaped district of a certain degree. The formula
evidently can incarnate the allocation idea, and conse-
quently, it also conforms to the restriction condition of
the modified model.
As shown in the figure, there is about one-third as
much area in the region that has exceeded the standard
with the area ratio distribution of the A-value method.
The greatest concentration is 0.068 mg/m3. These are the
downwind areas of high wind direction frequency and lie
in the central part of the region
VERIFICATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS
Prime Data
Simulation of the Annual Average
Concentration with the Modified Method
According to the previous method, the correction coeffi-
cient β of each district can be calculated as follows:
The Wind Direction Data. The meteorological data from
Shanghai Longhua Meteorological Station were adopted.
The wind frequency is listed in Table 1 (the frequency of
calm wind was divided into 16 equal parts and allocated
to 16 wind directions). The rose diagram of wind frequency
is shown in Figure 1.
1.2903 1.1583 1.0762 1.0585 1.1188 1.2071
1.2920 0.9535 0.8383 0.7675 0.7970 0.9988
1.3339 0.9652 0.7030 0.6282 0.6531 0.8172
β =
The Characters of the Total Emission Control Region. A hypo-
thetical total emission control region lies in the district un-
der the previous meteorological condition. It is a four-square
region, and the scale is 1.8 km × 1.8 km. It has been divided
into 36 function zones of equal areas. To forecast the annual
mean concentration in the region, the whole region was
divided into 12 × 12 grids. The distance between adjacent
grid points is 150 m. To guarantee the continuing concen-
tration curves in this region, spline interpolation was used
to calculate the concentration of other points that do not
belong to the grid points in this region.
1.3954 1.0218 0.7664 0.5857 0.6110 0.7511
1.5448 1.1801 0.9196 0.7501 0.6377 0.7836
1.7078 1.4874 1.2619 1.1010 0.9619 0.8759
SO2 was taken as an example. The total emission con-
trol region belongs to the second-class region in the “Am-
bient Air Quality Standard” (GB3095-1996).2 The annual
mean concentration of SO2 should not be greater than
0.06 mg/m3. The A-value coefficient is 4.2 according to
“Technical Methods for Making Local Emission Standards
of Air Pollutants”(GB/T13201-1991).3
The pollutants of each function zone are discharged
as a point source with a certain height at the center of the
function zone. The height of these point sources should
Figure 2. The positions of the pollution sources (X).
Volume 52 June 2002
716 Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

Xu, Gao, Hu, and Shi
Figure 5. The mesh of SO2 concentration with modified distribution
(1 × 10–3 mg/m3).
Figure 3. The mesh of SO2 concentration with A-value distribution
(1 × 10–3 mg/m3).
β corresponds to the correction coefficient of each func-
tion zone.
These figures show that the areas that exceed the stan-
dard by the original allocation method have disappeared.
The concentrations in the region are lower than standard.
The discharge loading of this region also has not changed.
The greatest concentration is 0.058 mg/m3, that is, 97%
of the standard value. The concentration distribution be-
came better proportioned, and the differences between
high and low concentrations decreased slightly.
The values of βi indicate that the function zones up-
wind of the southwest wind direction, whose wind fre-
quency is the smallest, have more discharge loading than
those of the A-value method. At the same time, the func-
tion zones upwind of the southeast wind direction, whose
frequency is greatest, have less discharge loading. The
function zones at the edge of the control region have more
discharge loading, and the central function zones have
less discharge loading. The largest increment is 70.78%,
and the largest decrement is 41.43%.
The permitted discharge loading of most function
zones has changed greatly. The height of the point sources
should be changed to conform to GB16297-1996. The
simulation of the annual mean concentration of SO2 in
the region by the atmospheric diffusion model1,5-8 after
these adjustments can be shown in Figures 5 and 6.
CONCLUSIONS
From comparing the original method of area distribu-
tion with the modified method, the following conclu-
sions can be drawn: (1) The modified allocation method
took the meteorological data and the pollutants’ influ-
ence area into consideration. It can embody factually
the practical influence of pollutants discharged in func-
tion zones of the total emission control region. The con-
centration of some areas in the region would exceed the
Figure 4. The isopleths of SO2 concentration with A-value distribution
(1 × 10–3 mg/m3).
Figure 6. The isopleths of SO2 concentration with modified distribution
(1 × 10–3 mg/m3).
Volume 52 June 2002
Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 717

Xu, Gao, Hu, and Shi
4. China National Environmental Protection Agency. Comprehensive
Emission Standard of Air Pollutants; GB16297-1996; Chinese Standard:
Peking, China, 1996.
5. Weimei, J.; Wenjun, C.; Ruibing, J. The Meteorologic Course of Atmo-
spheric Pollution; China Weather: Peking, China, 1993.
6. Qinggeng, W.; Yueming, W.; Zongkai, L. An Improved A-P Method;
Acta Scientiae Circumst. 1997, 17 (3), 278-283.
7. Fujian, M.; Zongkai, L.; Lu, Y.; Feng, Q. A Multiple Source Model of
Urban Air Pollution; China Environ. Sci. 1991, 11 (5), 365-370.
8. Seama, N.L. Meteorological Modeling for Air Quality Assessment;
Atmos. Environ. 2000, 34, 2131-2259.
criterion of the distribution method of the A-value
method exclusively. That would cause great harm to the
environment. To protect the environment, certain per-
mitted discharge loading of some sources has to be de-
creased, which results in limitation of the economy. In
fact, the premier cause is that the atmospheric environ-
mental resource cannot be used thoroughly. Using the
modification method, the contradiction can be solved
aptly. (2) Wind direction, wind frequency, and the posi-
tion of the district are considered in the modified alloca-
tion method. It is very easy to calculate the correction
coefficient. (3) The pollutant sources should be collocated
at the edge of the region, conforming to the result of the
modified allocation method.
About the Authors
Mr. Xu is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Environmental
Engineering and Science at Tongji University in China. Dr.
Gao is a professor at the School of Environmental Engi-
neering and Science at Tongji University and the director of
the National Engineering Research Center for Urban Pollu-
tion Control in China. Ms. Hu is a master candidate at the
College of Environmental Engineering and Science at
Donghua University in China. Mr. Shi is a professor at the
College of Environmental Engineering and Science at
Donghua University in China. The corresponding author’s
address is Bin Xu, Tongji University, Box 67, Shanghai
200092, China; e-mail: wenwu7611@hotmail.com.
REFERENCES
1. China National Environmental Protection Agency. The Handbook for
Atmospheric Total Emission Control in City; China Environmental Sci-
ence: Peking, China, 1991.
2. China National Environmental Protection Agency. Ambient Air Qual-
ity Standard; GB3095-1996; Chinese Standard: Peking, China, 1996.
3. China National Environmental Protection Agency. Technical Methods
for Making Local Emission Standards of Air Pollutants; GB/T13201-1991;
Chinese Standard: Peking, China, 1991.
718 Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association
Volume 52 June 2002