scholarly journals Health Cost Estimation of Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Assessing the Pollution Reduction Potential of Zero-Emission Vehicles in Toronto, Canada

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4956
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Shamsi ◽  
Mohammad Munshed ◽  
Manh-Kien Tran ◽  
Youngwoo Lee ◽  
Sean Walker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
Health Cost ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
The Impact

Fossil fuel vehicles, emitting air toxics into the atmosphere, impose a heavy burden on the economy through additional health care expenses and ecological degradation. Air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths and chronic and acute health problems every year, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The fossil-fuel-based transportation system releases tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere putting human health at risk, especially in urban areas. This analysis aims to determine the economic burden of environmental and health impacts caused by Highway 401 traffic. Due to the high volume of vehicles driving on the Toronto Highway 401 corridor, there is an annual release of 3771 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). These emissions are mainly emitted onsite through the combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel. The integration of electric and hydrogen vehicles shows maximum reductions of 405–476 g CO2e per vehicle-kilometer. Besides these carbon dioxide emissions, there is also a large amount of hazardous air pollutants. To examine the impact of air pollution on human health, the mass and concentrations of criteria pollutants of PM2.5 and NOx emitted by passenger vehicles and commercial trucks on Highway 401 were determined using the MOVES2014b software. Then, an air dispersion model (AERMOD) was used to find the concentration of different pollutants at the receptor’s location. The increased risk of health issues was calculated using hazard ratios from literature. Finally, the health cost of air pollution from Highway 401 traffic was estimated to be CAD 416 million per year using the value of statistical life, which is significantly higher than the climate change costs of CAD 55 million per year due to air pollution.

scholarly journals The Historical Trend of Air Pollution and Its Impact on Human Health in Campania Region (Italy)

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 553
Author(s):  
Domenico Toscano ◽  
Fabio Murena
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Average Concentration ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Concentration Data ◽  
Limit Values ◽  
Campania Region ◽  
The Impact

The Campania region covers an area of about 13,590 km2 with 5.8 million residents. The area suffers from several environmental issues due to urbanization, the presence of industries, wastewater treatment, and solid waste management concerns. Air pollution is one of the most relevant environmental troubles in the Campania region, frequently exceeding the limit values established by European directives. In this paper, airborne pollutant concentration data measured by the regional air quality network from 2003 to 2019 are collected to individuate the historical trends of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), coarse and fine particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters smaller than 10 μm (PM10) and 2.5 μm (PM2.5), and ozone (O3) through the analysis of the number of exceedances of limit values per year and the annual average concentration. Information on spatial variability and the effect of the receptor category is obtained by lumping together data belonging to the same province or category. To obtain information on the general air quality rather than on single pollutants, the European Air Quality Index (EU-AQI) is also evaluated. A special focus is dedicated to the effect of deep street canyons on air quality, since they are very common in the urban areas in Campania. Finally, the impact of air pollution from 2003 to 2019 on human health is also analyzed using the software AIRQ+.

scholarly journals Examining the Impacts of Economic, Social, and Environmental Factors on the Relationship between Urbanization and CO2 Emissions

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 7430
Author(s):  
Yang Ding ◽  
Qing Yang ◽  
Lanjuan Cao
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines the relationship between urbanization, economic growth, industrial transformation, technological change, public services, demographical change, urban and natural environmental changes, and carbon emissions using a dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities in China between 2001 and 2010. Specifically, this paper differs from previous studies in two aspects. First, the extant literature has focused on how economic processes accompanying rapid urbanization affect carbon emissions in urban areas but gives little attention to the other dimensions of urbanization, including social and environmental changes, which may have important effects on carbon emissions. We assessed the effects of 17 key processes accompanying urbanization in a full range of economic, social, and environmental dimensions on carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas. The results showed that social processes accompanied with rapid urbanization had distinct effects on carbon emissions, compared to economic and environmental processes. Specifically, improvement in public services, indicated by education and cultural developments, reduces the increase in carbon emissions during urbanization, while economic growth and urban construction reinforces the growth in carbon emissions. Second, we examined the impact of various urbanization processes on carbon dioxide emissions using a unique dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities that covers a wide span of regions in China. The results of our analyses on the city level have important implications for the formulation of comprehensive policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emission in urban areas, focusing on different urbanization processes in economic, social, and environmental phases.

scholarly journals An Examination of Green Credit Promoting Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction: A Provincial Panel Analysis of China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7148
Author(s):  
Wenjie Zhang ◽  
Mingyong Hong ◽  
Juan Li ◽  
Fuhong Li
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Industrial Structure ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Green Finance ◽  
Carbon Emissions Reduction ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Emissions Intensity ◽  
The Impact

The implementation of green finance is a powerful measure to promote global carbon emissions reduction that has been highly valued by academic circles in recent years. However, the role of green credit in carbon emissions reduction in China is still lacking testing. Using a set of panel data including 30 provinces and cities, this study focused on the impact of green credit on carbon dioxide emissions in China from 2006 to 2016. The empirical results indicated that green credit has a significantly negative effect on carbon dioxide emissions intensity. Furthermore, after the mechanism examination, we found that the promotion impacts of green credit on industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation are two effective channels to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Heterogeneity analysis found that there are regional differences in the effect of green credit. In the western and northeastern regions, the effect of green credit is invalid. Quantile regression results implied that the greater the carbon emissions intensity, the better the effect of green credit. Finally, a further discussion revealed there exists a nonlinear correlation between green credit and carbon dioxide emissions intensity. These findings suggest that the core measures to promote carbon emission reduction in China are to continue to expand the scale of green credit, increase the technology R&D investment of enterprises, and to vigorously develop the tertiary industry.

scholarly journals Estimating Causal Effects When the Treatment Affects All Subjects Simultaneously: An Application

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Chiara Binelli
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Average Global Temperature ◽  
Causal Impact ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Robust Evidence

Several important questions cannot be answered with the standard toolkit of causal inference since all subjects are treated for a given period and thus there is no control group. One example of this type of questions is the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming. In this paper, we address this question using a machine learning method, which allows estimating causal impacts in settings when a randomized experiment is not feasible. We discuss the conditions under which this method can identify a causal impact, and we find that carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for an increase in average global temperature of about 0.3 degrees Celsius between 1961 and 2011. We offer two main contributions. First, we provide one additional application of Machine Learning to answer causal questions of policy relevance. Second, by applying a methodology that relies on few directly testable assumptions and is easy to replicate, we provide robust evidence of the man-made nature of global warming, which could reduce incentives to turn to biased sources of information that fuels climate change skepticism.

scholarly journals Drivers of CO2-Emissions in Fossil Fuel Abundant Settings: (Pooled) Mean Group and Nonparametric Panel Analyses

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada ◽  
Wilhelm Loewenstein
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Environmental Kuznets Curve ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Resource Curse ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Kuznets Curve ◽  
Per Capita

The present inquiry addresses the income-environment relationship in oil-producing countries and scrutinizes the further drivers of atmospheric pollution in the respective settings. The existing literature that tests the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis within the framework of the black-box approaches provides only a bird’s-eye perspective on the long-run income-environment relationship. The aspiration behind this study is making the first step toward the disentanglement of the sources of carbon dioxide emissions, which could be employed in the pollution mitigation policies of this group of countries. Based on the combination of two strands of literature, the environmental Kuznets curve conjecture and the resource curse, the paper at hand proposes an augmented theoretical framework of this inquiry. To approach the research questions empirically, the study employs advanced panel cointegration techniques. To avoid econometric misspecification, the study also employs for the first time a nonparametric time-varying coefficient panel data estimator with fixed effects (NPFE) for the dataset of 37 oil-producing countries in the time interval spanning between 1989 and 2019. The empirical analysis identifies the level of per capita income, the magnitude of oil rents, the share of fossil fuel-based electricity generation in the energy mix, and the share of the manufacturing sector in GDP as essential drivers of carbon dioxide emissions in the oil-rich countries. Tertiarization, on the contrary, leads to a substantial reduction of emissions. Another striking result of this study is that level of political rights and civil liberties are negatively associated with per capita carbon emissions in this group of countries. Furthermore, the study decisively rejects an inverted U-shaped income-emission relationship and validates the monotonically or exponentially increasing impact of average income on carbon dioxide emissions.

The Obesity Paradox in Emergency General Surgery Patients

2021 ◽  
pp. 000313482096852
Author(s):  
Sean R. Maloney ◽  
Caroline E. Reinke ◽  
Abdelrahman A. Nimeri ◽  
Sullivan A. Ayuso ◽  
A. Britton Christmas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Surgery ◽  
Multivariable Analysis ◽  
Operative Management ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
High Morbidity ◽  
Emergency General Surgery ◽  
Common Procedure ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Social Security Death Index ◽  
The Impact

Operative management of emergency general surgery (EGS) diagnoses involves a range of procedures which can carry high morbidity and mortality. Little is known about the impact of obesity on patient outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine the association between body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m2 and mortality for EGS patients. We hypothesized that obese patients would have increased mortality rates. A regional integrated health system EGS registry derived from The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma EGS ICD-9 codes was analyzed from January 2013 to October 2015. Patients were stratified into BMI categories based on WHO classifications. The primary outcome was 30-day mortality. Longer-term mortality with linkage to the Social Security Death Index was also examined. Univariate and multivariable analyses were performed. A total of 60 604 encounters were identified and 7183 (11.9%) underwent operative intervention. Patient characteristics include 53% women, mean age 58.2 ± 18.7 years, 64.2% >BMI 30 kg/m2, 30.2% with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 19% with congestive heart failure, and 31.1% with diabetes. The most common procedure was laparoscopic cholecystectomy (36.4%). Overall, 90-day mortality was 10.9%. In multivariable analysis, all classes of obesity were protective against mortality compared to normal BMI. Underweight patients had increased risk of inpatient (OR = 1.9, CI = 1.7-2.3), 30-day (OR = 1.9, CI = 1.7-2.1), 90-day (OR = 1.8, CI 1.6-2.0), 1-year (OR = 1.8, CI = 1.7-2.0), and 3-year mortality (OR = 1.7, CI = 1.6-1.9). When stratified by BMI, underweight EGS patients have the highest odds of death. Paradoxically, obesity appears protective against death, even when controlling for potentially confounding factors. Increased rates of nonoperative management in the obese population may impact these findings.

scholarly journals INVESTIGASI PENGARUH KONDISI LALU LINTAS DAN ASPEK METEOROLOGI TERHADAP KONSENTRASI PENCEMAR SO2 DI KOTA SEMARANG

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Titik Istirokhatun ◽  
Ita Tetriana Agustini ◽  
Sudarno Sudarno
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Adverse Reactions ◽  
Meteorological Factors ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Traffic Light ◽  
Road Users ◽  
The Impact

The  presence  of  air  pollution  in  ambient  air  is  closely  related  to  the incidence  of  adverse reactions affecting human health. One of harmful pollutants and potentially major cause health problems is sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ). The number of vehicles that are passing and queuing on the crossroads  because  of  traffic light can  affect  the  concentration  of  SO 2 .  Besides,  in  these locations  there  are a lot of road users  which  are  potentially  exposed  by  contaminants, so information about the concentration of SO 2  is important to know. This study aimed to investigate the  impact  of  meteorological  factors  and  the  number  of vehicles  on  SO 2   concentrations. Impinger was used for air sampling, and pararosaniline method was used for determining SO 2  concentration. Sampling and calculation  of the number of passing vehicles were performed 3 times ie in the morning, afternoon and evening. Based on the results of the study, the highest concentrations of SO 2  were on the range of 15-21 mg/Nm3.

A Dynamic Analysis Of The Impact Of Air Pollution On The daylight Availability In An Open-plan Office In London

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-103
Author(s):  
Jiangtao Du ◽  
Steve Sharples
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Simulation Analysis ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
Pollutant Deposition ◽  
Open Plan ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Impact

The deposition of air pollutants on glazing can significantly affect the daylight transmittance of building fenestration systems in urban areas. This study presents a simulation analysis of the impact of air pollution and glazing visual transmittance on indoor daylight availability in an open-plan office in London. First, the direct links between glazing visual transmittance and daylighting conditions were developed and assessed. Second, several simple algorithms were established to estimate the loss of daylight availability due to the pollutant deposition at the external surface of vertical glazing. Finally, some conclusions and design strategies to support facade planning at the early design stage of an urban building project were developed.

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