Air Quality Considerations Research Articles

The Impact of Air Pollution Risk on the Sustainability of Crop Insurance Losses

Climate change poses significant risks to natural and economic environments, particularly through its interaction with air pollution. As agriculture is vital for national production, and crop insurance supports social security, it is crucial to examine how air pollution affects crop insurance. Here, we quantify the impact of air quality on crop insurance claims from an actuarial perspective and evaluate the implications for the industry. Utilizing claims data from the U.S., we explore the potential of particulate matter (PM2.5) as a predictor of insurance claims, building on literature that highlights its economic damage to crops. Through the application of a generalized additive model (GAM) and extreme gradient boosting, we found that PM2.5 is indeed a factor influencing crop insurance indemnity in both models, with the GAM demonstrating superior predictive performance. Furthermore, we employed Bai and Perron breakpoint analysis to elucidate the relationship between PM2.5 levels and crop insurance claims over time, alongside two-way fixed effects models to investigate its correlation with various crop types. Our findings highlight the need for crop insurance managers to integrate air quality considerations into their risk processes to ensure sustainability of the industry and pricing strategy in the face of evolving environmental challenges.

Addressing the asymmetry between central and local air protection policies: Insights from Poland

Purpose: This paper examines the asymmetry between the air protection policies of the central government and local authorities in Poland, using the city of Kraków as a case study. Methodology: The study employs a comparative method to contrast the Polish state's coal policy with the air protection efforts of the Kraków local government. A systems analysis approach is used to identify the causes and effects of the divergent policies. Results: The analysis reveals a lack of alignment between the central government's focus on maintaining coal extraction and the local government's efforts to reduce air pollution. Kraków authorities have taken significant measures to improve air quality, but face challenges due to insufficient support from the central government and neighboring municipalities. Theoretical contribution: The paper highlights the importance of policy symmetry and coordination between different levels of government in addressing complex environmental issues like air pollution. It contributes to understanding multi-level governance dynamics in the context of air protection. Practical implications: The findings underscore the need for a collaborative model of air protection policy that engages central authorities, local governments, private sector entities, and civil society. Establishing air protection councils at the voivodship, county and municipal levels is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate this coordination. Integrating air quality considerations into local governments' management control systems is also recommended.

Attribution of fine particulate matter and ozone health impacts in Canada to domestic and US emission sources

Exposure to ambient air pollution is associated with a wide range of adverse health effects such as respiratory symptoms, cardiovascular events, and premature mortality. Canada and the United States (US) have worked collaboratively for decades to address transboundary air pollution and its impacts across their shared border. To inform transboundary air quality considerations, we conducted modelling to attribute health impacts from ambient PM2.5 and O3 exposure in Canada to Canadian and US emission sources. We employed emissions, chemical transport, and health impacts modelling for 2015, 2025, and 2035 using a brute-force modelling approach whereby anthropogenic domestic and US emissions were reduced separately by 20 % or 100 %, and the resulting changes in health impacts were estimated across Canada. We find that transboundary PM2.5 and O3 related health impacts vary widely by region, with >80 % of impacts occurring in Central Canada, and most health impacts occurring within 200–300 km of the Canada-US border. The relative contribution of US sources to O3 in Canada is larger than for PM2.5, yet we find that the health impacts from transboundary PM2.5 exceeded those from transboundary O3. Nationally, we estimate that roughly one in five PM2.5 deaths in Canada is attributable to US sources (2000 deaths in 2015) and more than one in two O3 deaths are attributable to US sources (roughly 800 to 1200 deaths in 2015). We project health impacts from domestic and US sources to increase from 2025 to 2035 in Canada. Our results suggest that there are substantial benefits to be gained by domestic and international strategies to reduce PM2.5 in the Canada-US transboundary region.

Integrated working in local authority decision-making about air quality: a qualitative study in Southwest England.

Exposure to poor air quality is one of the most significant environmental public health challenges. In the UK, local authorities (LAs) are responsible for monitoring and managing air quality. This article explores the need and mechanisms for cross-departmental working in LAs to make decisions about air quality issues. Semi-structured qualitative interviews with public health, environmental health and transport staff from LAs within the Southwest of UK. Interviews were conducted between April and August 2021 and analysed using a thematic approach. In sum, 24 staff from 7 LAs participated. Local authority staff in public health, environmental health and transport teams recognized that managing air quality was a cross-departmental issue. To enable effective integrated working staff described four successful mechanisms: (i) policy commitments and political support; (ii) dedicated air quality steering groups; (iii) existing governance and oversight groups; and (iv) networking and relationships. This study has identified mechanisms that LA staff have found support cross-departmental and integrated working on air quality issues. These are mechanisms that have helped environmental health staff work towards achieving compliance with pollution limits, and that have helped public health staff get air quality considerations recognized as a wider health issue.

Establishing an Air Quality Index Based on Proxy Data for Urban Planning Part 1: Methodological Developments and Preliminary Tests

In the last few decades, urban planning has expanded regarding environmental considerations. However, air quality, which is regarded as an important aspect of the green development of cities, is not considered in urban planning. This research aims to propose a tool to easily introduce air quality considerations into urban projects. Nowadays, the usual air pollutants (NOx, PM, SO2, and O3) are measured via sophisticated monitoring stations—or even low-cost devices—to give near-real-time air quality indices. However, stations are not adapted to local air pollution and real-time data are not helpful for planning purposes. An index able to rank areas and projects based on urban “air proxy data” would help decision makers. This paper presents how to create an air quality index as a decision support tool for urban planning. No pollutant measurement campaign will be necessary and only data that are easily accessible, even to nonexperts, are used. This paper describes the methodological development of an index that we call AQOI (Air Quality Observed Index), and the results obtained for four different locations (industrial, urban, and rural) considered as preliminary tests.

Indoor Air Quality Considerations for Laboratory Animals in Wildfire-Impacted Regions-A Pilot Study.

Simple SummaryWith increasing wildfires in the western US and around the world, it is important to take stock of impacts to humans as well as animals. Fires create smoke, and exposure to wildfire particles is known to negatively impact health. Therefore, we asked if smoke might get into buildings where animal research takes place. Our one-month study provides evidence that smoke does get inside an animal facility and levels can exceed ambient air quality standards that are set to protect public health. More work is needed to establish the impact that indoor smoke exposure might have on research animals, but we suggest these data warrant consideration for air quality monitoring and planning within animal facilities at risk for outdoor smoke events.Wildfire events are increasing across the globe. The smoke generated as a result of this changing fire landscape is potentially more toxic than air pollution from other ambient sources, according to recent studies. This is especially concerning for populations of humans or animals that live downwind of areas that burn frequently, given that ambient exposure to wildfire smoke cannot be easily eliminated. We hypothesized that a significant indoor air pollution risk existed for laboratory animal facilities located proximal to fire-prone areas. Here, we measured real time continuous outdoor and indoor air quality for 28 days at a laboratory animal facility located in the Rocky Mountain region. We demonstrated that during a wildfire event, the indoor air quality of this animal facility is influenced by ambient smoke events. The daily average indoor fine particulate matter value in an animal room exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s ambient annual standard 14% of the time and exceeded the World Health Organization’s ambient annual guideline 71% of the time. We further show that specialized cage filtration systems are capable of mitigating air pollution penetrance and could improve an animal’s microenvironment. The potential effects for laboratory animal physiology that occur in response to the exposure levels and durations measured in this study remain to be determined; yet, even acute wildfire exposure events have been previously correlated with significant differences in gene regulatory and metabolic processes in vivo. We believe these findings warrant consideration for indoor laboratory animal facility air quality monitoring and development of smoke exposure prevention and response protocols, especially among facilities located downwind of fire-prone landscapes.

Effects of Air Quality on Housing Location: A Predictive Dynamic Continuum User-Optimal Approach

Recent decades have seen increasing concerns regarding air quality in housing locations. This study proposes a predictive continuum dynamic user-optimal model with combined choice of housing location, destination, route, and departure time. A traveler’s choice of housing location is modeled by a logit-type demand distribution function based on air quality, housing rent, and perceived travel costs. Air quality, or air pollutants, within the modeling region are governed by the vehicle-emission model and the advection-diffusion equation for dispersion. In this study, the housing-location problem is formulated as a fixed-point problem and the predictive continuum dynamic user-optimal model with departure-time consideration is formulated as a variational inequality problem. The Lax-Friedrichs scheme, the fast-sweeping method, the Goldstein-Levitin-Polyak projection algorithm, and self-adaptive successive averages are adopted to discretize and solve these problems. A numerical example is given to demonstrate the characteristics of the proposed housing-location choice problem with consideration of air quality and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the solution algorithms.

What can we learn about urban air quality with regard to the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic? A case study from central Europe

Abstract. Motor vehicle road traffic in central Budapest was reduced by approximately 50 % of its ordinary level for several weeks as a consequence of various limitation measures introduced to mitigate the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The situation was utilised to assess the real potentials of urban traffic on air quality. Concentrations of NO, NO2, CO, O3, SO2 and particulate matter (PM) mass, which are ordinarily monitored in cities for air quality considerations, aerosol particle number size distributions, which are not rarely measured continuously on longer runs for research purposes, and meteorological properties usually available were collected and jointly evaluated in different pandemic phases. The largest changes occurred over the severest limitations (partial lockdown in the Restriction phase from 28 March to 17 May 2020). Concentrations of NO, NO2, CO, total particle number (N6–1000) and particles with a diameter < 100 nm declined by 68 %, 46 %, 27 %, 24 % and 28 %, respectively, in 2020 with respect to the average reference year comprising 2017–2019. Their quantification was based on both relative difference and standardised anomaly. The change rates expressed as relative concentration difference due to relative reduction in traffic intensity for NO, NO2, N6–1000 and CO were 0.63, 0.57, 0.40 and 0.22 (%/%), respectively. Of the pollutants which reacted in a sensitive manner to the change in vehicle circulation, it is the NO2 that shows the most frequent exceedance of the health limits. Intentional tranquillising of the vehicle flow has considerable potential for improving the air quality. At the same time, the concentration levels of PM10 mass, which is the most critical pollutant in many European cities including Budapest, did not seem to be largely affected by vehicles. Concentrations of O3 concurrently showed an increasing tendency with lower traffic, which was explained by its complex reaction mechanism. Modelling calculations indicated that spatial gradients of NO and NO2 within the city became further enhanced by reduced vehicle flow.

An urban big data-based air quality index prediction: A case study of routes planning for outdoor activities in Beijing

Urban big data include various types of datasets, such as air quality data, meteorological data, and weather forecast data. Air quality index is broadly used in many countries as an indicator to measure the air pollution status. This indicator has a great impact on outdoor activities of urban residents, such as long-distance cycling, running, jogging, and walking. However, for routes planning for outdoor activities, there is still a lack of comprehensive consideration of air quality. In this paper, an air quality index prediction model (namely airQP-DNN) and its application are proposed to address the issue. This paper primarily consists of two components. The first component is to predict the future air quality index based on a deep neural network, using historical air quality datasets, current meteorological datasets, and weather forecasting datasets. The second component refers to a case study of outdoor activities routes planning in Beijing, which can help plan the routes for outdoor activities based on the airQP-DNN model, and allow users to enter the origin and destination of the route for the optimized path with the minimum accumulated air quality index. The air quality monitoring datasets of Beijing and surrounding cities from April 2014 to April 2015 (over 758,000 records) are used to verify the proposed airQP-DNN model. The experimental results explicitly demonstrate that our proposed model outperforms other commonly used methods in terms of prediction accuracy, including autoregressive integrated moving average model, gradient boosted decision tree, and long short-term memory. Based on the airQP-DNN model, the case study of outdoor activities routes planning is implemented. When the origin and destination are specified, the optimized paths with the minimum accumulated air quality index would be provided, instead of the standard static Dijkstra shortest path. In addition, a Web-GIS-based prototype has also been successfully developed to support the implementation of our proposed model in this research. The success of our study not only demonstrates the value of the proposed airQP-DNN model, but also shows the potential of our model in other possible extended applications.

Size-dependent efficiencies of ultrafine particle removal of various filter media

Ultrafine particles (UFPs) are hazardous air pollutants produced by human activities in outdoor and indoor environments. Filtration in mechanical ventilation systems or air purifiers is an effective technology for removal of outdoor- or indoor-originated particles, to reduce human exposure to UFPs in indoor environments, where people spend most of their time. The filtration efficiency of filter media is critical to performance, and the efficiency significantly depends on particle diameter. Thus, the size-dependent efficiencies of 47 commercial filter media with 17 filter classes were measured at typical air flow velocities. The pressure drops at different velocities were also measured to obtain the ratios of pressure drops to media velocities. Total efficiencies of UFP removal were estimated based on the size-dependent efficiencies and size distributions of UFPs in three typical cases. The average efficiency of the UFP removal of coarse filters, fine filters, high-efficiency particulate air filters, and ultra-low particulate air filters in typical cases were 10.85%, 76.87%, 99.37%, and 99.92%, respectively. The maximum range of the total efficiency was 18.17%, which was significantly smaller than that of size-dependent efficiency (45.15%). The efficiencies for particles with the mean diameter and mean value of the total efficiency of the UFPs were similar, with absolute differences of less than 5%. These results can provide guidance for selection of filter media under the comprehensive consideration of air quality and energy consumption and offer reference values for the evaluation of new filter media as well as basic data for the assessment of human exposure to UFPs.

Towards an effective environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the industrial sector of Bahrain, Arabian Gulf

Rapid economic and industrial developments and population growth in Bahrain are associated with increases in energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process has been adopted in the country to address environmental aspects within energy intensive projects such as oil and petrochemical industries. The quality of EIA reports with respect to energy conservation and gas emissions was investigated in this study. The results obtained showed that aspects of gas emissions received more attention than energy conservation. The reports reflected a good (75%) and satisfactory (25%) consideration of air quality. Considering the efficiency and energy consumption aspects, the reports were assessed as satisfactory (25%), borderline (50%) and poor (25%) quality. A framework to be used as a platform to integrate the EIA process, environmental management systems (EMS) and energy management systems (EnMS) was suggested. Enforcement of legislations to ensure efficient use of energy within the industrial sector, adopting strategic environmental assessment (SEA) practice in the country and linking it to energy planning, and encouraging industrial firms to adopt EnMS to play the role of adhering to EIA mitigation measures were recommended.

Air quality considerations for stormwater green street design

Green streets are increasingly being used as a stormwater management strategy to mitigate stormwater runoff at its source while providing other environmental and societal benefits, including connecting pedestrians to the street. Simultaneously, human exposure to particulate matter from urban transportation is of major concern worldwide due to the proximity of pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists to the emission sources. Vegetation used for stormwater treatment can help designers limit the exposure of people to air pollutants. This goal can be achieved through the deliberate placement of green streets, along with strategic planting schemes that maximize pollutant dispersion. This communication presents general design considerations for green streets that combine stormwater management and air quality goals. There is currently limited guidance on designing green streets for air quality considerations; this is the first communication to offer suggestions and advice for the design of green stormwater streets in regards to their effects on air quality. Street characteristics including (1) the width to height ratio of the street to the buildings, (2) the type of trees and their location, and (3) any prevailing winds can have an impact on pollutant concentrations within the street and along sidewalks. Vegetation within stormwater control measures has the ability to reduce particulate matter concentrations; however, it must be carefully selected and placed within the green street to promote the dispersion of air flow.

What motivates Vietnam to strive for a low-carbon economy? — On the drivers of climate policy in a developing country

Though climate change is an urgent problem especially for vulnerable developing countries, international negotiations are in a gridlock. Standard game-theoretic models that describe climate change mitigation as a public good problem predict few incentives for individual countries to act. Nevertheless – despite the absence of a globally binding agreement – we can observe some developing countries launching unilateral climate policies. Being one of th\\ose, Vietnam has recently announced to strive for a low-carbon economy. Based on interviews with Vietnamese policy makers and other stakeholders, this explorative case study examines Vietnam's motivation for a policy change that has shifted from emphasizing the responsibilities of developed countries for climate change towards accepting responsibility of developing countries to also reduce their emissions. While Vietnam's high vulnerability has contributed to put climate on the political agenda, the policy shift from a pure adaptation towards a mitigation focus was mainly driven by expected multiple climate policy benefits other than climate change abatement (so-called co-benefits). These include restructuring of the economy, addressing energy security concerns and accessing international finance to counteract a phase-out of conventional development assistance. Air quality considerations, by contrast, do not seem to play a major role for Vietnam's shift in climate policy.

Traffic assignment considering air quality

This paper presents a methodology of assigning traffic in a network with the consideration of air quality. Traffic assignment is formulated as an optimization problem considering travel cost and on-road emissions. It introduces a cell-based approach to model emission concentrations so that either the average or maximum emissions in a network can be considered in the optimization process. The emissions in a cell are modeled taking into consideration the influence of the emission sources from all cells in the network. A case study demonstrates that minimizing travel cost and reducing air pollutants may not be always achieved simultaneously. The traffic assignment procedure can effectively reduce emission concentrations at those locations with the worst air quality conditions, with only a marginal increase in travel time and average emission concentration in the network.

UK air quality in 2050—synergies with climate change policies

Estimates are made of air quality in the UK around the time of 2050 on the assumption that significant changes are made to energy and transport technologies to move towards the goal of a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 on a 1990 base. London is used as an example to assess possible future concentrations of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen. Emission reductions and their effects on ozone concentrations in the southern UK are also discussed. The paper concludes that significant synergies and co-benefits are possible through a concerted consideration of air quality and climate change policies.

Calibration system and analytical considerations for quantitative sesquiterpene measurements in air

Sesquiterpenes (C 15H 24, SQT) are semi-volatile organic compounds emitted from vegetation and are of interest for air quality considerations because of their suspected contribution to the formation of secondary aerosol. This article investigates the application of a capillary diffusion method for the generation of standard atmospheres of 16 SQT and four other related semi-volatile compounds. This instrument subsequently has been used in the testing of analytical materials, protocols and calibration of air sampling methods. SQT DB-1 retention indices, vapor pressures at 25 and 75 °C, and diffusion coefficients were determined. A quantitative, on-line GC method yielded improved results (median relative standard deviation of 5.0–6.1%) for the diffusion rate determination in comparison to a gravimetric approach (median relative standard deviation 18%). The GC method also allowed identifying errors in the gravimetric method stemming from residual solvent evaporation, impurities, and chemical analyte losses. Stainless steel, glass, nickel and PTFE tubing that were tested for transfer lines and a sampling loop had to be kept at temperatures in excess of ∼110 °C in order to prevent significant analytical errors from the stickiness of SQT to these materials. In addition to SQT analysis, results from this research provide general guidelines for gas-phase analysis of related compounds in the C 14–C 16 volatility range.

Radiative Forcing Due to Reactive Gas Emissions

Reactive gas emissions (CO, NOx, VOC) have indirect radiative forcing effects through their influences on tropospheric ozone and on the lifetimes of methane and hydrogenated halocarbons. These effects are quantified here for the full set of emissions scenarios developed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. In most of these no-climate-policy scenarios, anthropogenic reactive gas emissions increase substantially over the twenty-first century. For the implied increases in tropospheric ozone, the maximum forcing exceeds 1 W m−2 by 2100 (range −0.14 to +1.03 W m−2). The changes are moderated somewhat through compensating influences from NOx versus CO and VOC. Reactive gas forcing influences through methane and halocarbons are much smaller; 2100 ranges are −0.20 to +0.23 W m−2 for methane and −0.04 to +0.07 W m−2 for the halocarbons. Future climate change might be reduced through policies limiting reactive gas emissions, but the potential for explicitly climate-motivated reductions depends critically on the extent of reductions that are likely to arise through air quality considerations and on the assumed baseline scenario.

A Preliminary Analysis of the Linkages between Air Quality Management and Transport Planning Policies in a Sample of English Highways Authorities

This paper considers the evolution of the local transport planning process and examines a sample of nine county-scale areas with regard to the integration of air quality issues within the transport planning process over the last 3 years. It concludes that transport planning in the UK has made some headway towards the integration of environmental considerations into the planning process, including air quality considerations. There is, however, notable diversity between highways authorities in the degree to which air quality is considered. Air quality management operates to a significantly shorter time-scale than transport planning. The differing time-scales of the two planning processes have hindered their integration as a consequence.

Chapter 6. A Screening Method for Identifying Potential Air Quality Risks from Extreme Wildfire Events

Summary Historic land use policies and fire suppression practices have resulted in vegetation conditions and fuel loadings on public lands which increase the potential for catastrophic wildfire events. Air quality is an important consideration during wildfire events and in implementing the fire or smoke management practices which reduce the likelihood and/or impacts of such events. Regulations exist at the national, state, and in some cases local level, to protect public health and visibility/scenic values from the air pollution from many sources, including fire. Air regulators can make informed decisions, and better set priorities in support of implementing wildfire prevention actions and management alternatives, if they can identify and rank areas susceptible to wildfire events relative to the potential risk to air quality values. This information can also be used by land managers to better incorporate air quality considerations into their overall analysis of the cumulative socioenvironmental effects of potential wildfire events. This paper describes a screening method which utilizes readily available data sources and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools in conjunction with an air quality dispersion model to rank risks from potential wildfire events relative to public health and visibility air quality values. The screening method is piloted using information from the State of Colorado. The results can be used to indicate and communicate the potential risk to air quality values for those areas which are susceptible to wildfire events.

Excimer laser cleaning of mold-contaminated paper: Sterilization and air quality considerations

The Excimer laser can be used to remove biological debris from underlying substrates. The ability of the krypton fluoride (KrF) Excimer laser to removeAspergillus niger mold, which had been grown on filter paper, was evaluated in the present study. The air in the immediate vicinity of the laser cleaning apparatus was sampled to determine if viable mold fragments were released into the air during treatment. It was found that filter paper could be sterilized with the Excimer laser wavelength with the proper selection of parameters. During this process, viable spores and mold fragments are released into the atmosphere, and pose a relative risk unless proper measures to prevent contamination of the work area are taken.