Introduction:China’s air quality has been dire over the past few years. In 2013, China State Council issued the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan 2013-2017 (also referred to as the “Ten Measures of Air,”) setting a new precedent for governmental efforts tackling air pollution management. One year after the action plan’s enactment, what have China’s provinces and cities done to meet these requirements?To answer this question, the Report contains data from 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions (hereinafter will be referred to as “provinces”), with the exception of Tibet (due to data availability). According to the report, few provinces met targets for annual average PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations; however, some made significant progress on pollutant emission control. Shanxi, Shandong and Shanghai achieved outstanding improvements in overall air quality and have exceeded their annual quotas.
