A socioeconomic air pollutant emission inventory of 30 Chinese provinces for 2012 and 2017

Rapid economic development in recent China were accompanied with severe atmospheric pollution, which has attracted wide concern as its great threaten to human health. Detailed air pollutant inventories by region and socioeconomic sector can help to support the design of pollution control policies from various industrial transformation perspectives. Based on the existing widely used air pollutant inventory——the MEIC model and various energy statistical data, this data description reconstructs the most up-to-data inventory for various particulate matter (including primary PM2.5, BC, OC, PM10 and CO) and PM2.5 precursors (SO2, NOx, MNVOC and NH3) in 46 socioeconomic sectors for 30 Chinese provinces in 2012 and 2017, which can be directly used in various economic models directly. The inventory is an important extension of the MEIC model. As this database covers the most crucial years during the implementation period of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, it offers many opportunities for various scientific research and policy making from an industrial structure perspective.