An optical remote sensing method based on passive differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) for the determination of the flux of SO₂ or other gaseous pollutants from an area (such as industrial area,city) which includes many different atmospheric pollution sources was studied in the present paper.Passive DOAS using the zenith scattered sunlight as the light source provides the column density (the integrated concentration of atmospheric absorbers along the light path) and has been successfully applied to the determination of the flux of gaseous pollutants emitted from the volcano or point source.Passive DOAS instrument installed in a car scanned the plume emitted from an area by circling around the area in this paper.Column density of each selected gaseous pollutant was retrieved from zenith scattered sunlight spectra collected by the instrument by spectral analysis method of passive DOAS in their particular absorption spectral range respectively.Combined with the meteorological (wind field) information during the period of measurement,the net flux value of gaseous pollutant from this area during the measurement could be estimated.DOAS method used to obtain the column density of gaseous pollutant in the section plane of the plume emitted from source and the method of net flux calculation of gaseous pollutant from a certain area are described.Also a passive DOAS instrument was developed and installed in a car to scan the gaseous pollutants from the area surrounded by the 5th Ring Road in Beijing city during a field campaign in the summer of 2005.The SO₂ net flux 1.13×10⁴ kg·h^-1 and NO2 net flux 9.3×10³ kg·h^-1 from this area were derived separately after the passive DOAS measured the entire ring road and the wind data were roughly estimated from wind profile radar.The results indicate that this optical remote sensing method based on passive DOAS can be used to rapidly determine the flux of gaseous pollutant (such as SO₂,NO₂) emitted from an area,especially from a city or an industrial area.