Air quality and health benefits of green transformation in the brick and tile industry: A case of Chenzhou, a typical industrial city in Hunan province, China

The brick and tile industry with high energy consumption, scattered distribution, and low governance level, has become one of the key obstacles for continuous air quality improvement in China, while the pollution reduction potential was rarely assessed. This study combined the bottom-up and up-down methods and applied the WRF-CMAQ and GEMM models to identify the effect of air quality improvement and health benefits in Chenzhou City of Hunan Province, where the brick and tile enterprises are densely populated. A green development path for the brick and tile industry was designed concerning the aspects of end-of-pipe treatment, technological upgrading, elimination of outdated production capacity, and fugitive emission control. Results show that by 2030 the green development path will lead the emissions of SO 2 , NO x , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 drop to 45.6 %, 57.0 %, 33.5 %, 33.5 %, respectively, comparing with the current situation in 2023, the PM 2.5 concentration will decrease by 1.97 %, about 0.65 μg/m 3 , and the number of deaths will be reduced by 44 people annually. By 2035, SO 2 , NO x , PM 10 , and PM 2.5 emissions will be further dropped to 6.3 %, 31.5 %, 7.6 % and 7.6 %, respectively; PM 2.5 concentration will drop by 0.68 % extra, approximately 0.22 μg/m 3 , and reduce extra 14 annual premature deaths. While considering China’s population aging trend, the health reward was even enhanced, with total 59 and 92 premature deaths avoided by 2030 and 2035 respectively. Concrete suggestions such as centralized industry, non-sintered brick technology, end-of-pipe treatment technology, are given for green upgrading, which provide quantitative references for cities with similar industry.