Economic losses due to ozone impacts on human health, forest productivity and crop yield across China

China's economic growth has significantly increased emissions of tropospheric ozone (O-3) precursors, resulting in increased regional O-3 pollution. We analyzed data from > 1400 monitoring stations and estimated the exposure of population and vegetation (crops and forests) to O-3 pollution across China in 2015. Based on WHO metrics for human health protection, the current O-3 level leads to +0.9% premature mortality (59,844 additional cases a year) with 96% of populated areas showing O-3-induced premature death. For vegetation, O-3 reduces annual forest tree biomass growth by 11-13% and yield of rice and wheat by 8% and 6%, respectively, relative to conditions below the respective AOT40 critical levels (CL). These CLs are exceeded over 98%, 75% and 83% of the areas of forests, rice and wheat, respectively. Using O-3 exposure-response functions, we evaluated the costs of O-3-induced losses in rice (7.5 billion US$), wheat (11.1 billion US$) and forest production (52.2 billion US$) and SOMO35-based morbidity for respiratory diseases (690.9 billion US$) and non-accidental mortality (7.5 billion US$), i.e. a total O-3-related cost representing 7% of the China Gross Domestic Product in 2015.