More of Guangdong province came under threat of severe damage from acid rain in the first half of this year, a result in part of an increase in automobile emissions, a recent environment report showed.
Five cities and districts in the province - Shaoguan, Qingyuan, Foshan, Shenzhen and Shunde - were found to be heavily polluted by acid rain in the first six months of this year, up from four in the same period of last year, according to a provincial environmental report for the first half of 2012.
The report, released by the provincial environmental protection department last week, found that 12 cities, or more than half of the province's 21 cities, were polluted by acid rain in the first half, up from 11 in the same period of 2011.
Environmental experts said most acid rain in Guangdong results from the high concentration of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the air in the province.
The report said nitrogen oxide has become a major cause of acid rain in the past six months, a result partly of the greater number of automobiles on the province's roads and an inability to adequately control their emissions.
The concentration of sulfur dioxide in the province's air has dropped by 20 percent year-on-year, but various conditions are still leading to a higher production of acid rain, said Zhou Yongzhang, director of the Center for Earth Environment and Resources at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.
