Second Assessment

Visualization Assessment

       In our group, we decided to do a visualization of population vs air pollution of different provinces in China. And this visualization is not like some kind of "online graph" (online statistic charts are pie graphs and bar graphs.) it is a form of "nail and string art". Due to political reasons, China has about 30 provinces more or less, we excluded Taiwan (because Taiwan IS not a part of China, as well as Hong Kong) We plotted the population of each provinces by using a golden pin, which represents  five million. Some provinces have great numbers of population and we could not plot within the given space, therefore we used a flag with a number to present the actual population in the province. Then we plotted the emission of PM2.5 of each provinces by using different color pins. Each of the color pins represents different scales of PM2.5. The figures below show the air pollution and population in China, 2010.

   

unit is microgram per cubic meter= 1.0 × 10^-9 kg / m³

Or written as    µg/m³

Generally, we found a linear trend that the more population there is, greater the air pollutions is. But if you take Guangdong and Hebei as a comparison, Guangdong is the most populated province in China (with 111,916,632), but its PM2.5 is only about 25 µg/m³. Hebei has a population of 104,404,794 and its PM2.5 is about 40 µg/m³. The differences may be caused by the desertification in Inner Mongolia. The land in Inner Mongolia is not suitable for farming, however, it was still used as a farm land. After a few cycles of plantations, the land ran out of minerals and started to dry out, and resulting in desertification. Neighboring Inner Mongolia, Hebei itself is a big industrial province with high emission of air pollutants. The smog and desertification amplified the impact of air pollution.

       WHO stated an maximum emission of PM2.5 of 10µg/m³ annually as suitable for living. Many of the provinces in China is off the chart. Ironically, Chinese government even released data of air pollution and claiming it as decreasing.     

(Our presentation slides)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzDsfk3uFieXMDVKQnJ5QmhnS0E/view?usp=sharing