Estimating health damage cost from secondary sulfate particles—a case study of Hunan Province, China

China's coal-dominated energy pattern has resulted in large amount of SO2 emissions. Estimate of the sulfur-related health damage cost is necessary to heip perform systematic cost-benefit analysis and set national energy and emissions control priorities. Current researches were confined to gaseous SO2 in urban areas; however, secondary sulfate (SO4^2-) particles can exert serious impact in a wider region. Basedon the concept of "intake fraction", CALPUFF long-range dispersion model and 180 sample emission sources, multiple regression equation wasobtained with good correlation ( r = 0.85 ), which illustrates that populations were key parameters to determine intake fraction but sourcecharacteristics were insignificant. Based on the formula and the population distribution data, county-level intake fractions were mapped forHunan Province(range: 1.1× 10^-6 — 3.2×10^-6) of China. A combination of county-level SO2 emissions with the intake fractions yields a total 1.98 tons of sulfate(SO4^2- ) inhalation, and resulting total health damage cost to be 0.76(willingness to pay approach, WTP) or 0.16 ( human capital approach, HC) billion USD in 1997, about 2.1% or 0.45 % of GDP in Hunan in 1997. Average health damage cost per ton of SO4^2- emission is 930(WTP) or 200 USD(HC). The results demonstrated that more stringent regulation should be forced.