Risk Assessment for the Population of Kyiv, Ukraine as a Result of Atmospheric Air Pollution

Background. According to the World Health Organization, 92% of the world's population lives in places where air quality levels exceed recommended limits. Recently, Ukraine had the most deaths per every 100,000 people (out of 120 countries) attributed to atmospheric air pollution. High levels of atmospheric air pollution have been observed not only in typically industrial regions, but in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, as well. Objectives. The aim of the present study was to establish the state of air pollution in Kyiv and perform a risk assessment of associated human health effects. Methods. Using official statistics and state monitoring data, the study aimed to identify and analyze risks to the health of Kyiv's population associated with air pollution. The following methods were used: systematic, functional and comparative analysis, risk theory, mathematical modeling, probability theory and mathematical statistics, as well as geographic information system technologies for digital map design and objective-oriented methodology for software design systems. Results. The risk values across different areas of the city varied significantly, indicating that atmospheric air quality remains unstable. Areas with the highest and lowest risk values were identified. Conclusions. The environmental state of atmospheric air in Kyiv requires greater attention and additional research to identify the causes of air pollution, along with implementation of measures to improve air quality. Competing Interests. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Download Full-text

Indoor Air Quality, Information, and Socioeconomic Status: Evidence from Delhi

AEA Papers and Proceedings ◽

10.1257/pandp.20211006 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 111 ◽

pp. 420-424

Author(s):

Michael Greenstone ◽

Kenneth Lee ◽

Harshil Sahai

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air Quality ◽

Indoor Air ◽

Indoor Air Pollution ◽

World Health ◽

Quality Information ◽

Air Purifier ◽

Health Organization

In Delhi, one of the world's most polluted cities, there is relatively little information on indoor air pollution and how it varies by socioeconomic status (SES). Using indoor air quality monitors (IAQMs), we find that winter levels of household air pollution exceed World Health Organization standards by more than 20 times in both high-and low-SES households. We then evaluate a field experiment that randomly assigned monthlong IAQM user trials across medium-and high-SES households but suffered from significant survey non-response. Among respondents, IAQMs did not affect take-up of subsidized air purifier rentals or other defensive behavior.

Download Full-text

Air Quality Levels and Health Risk Assessment of Particulate Matters in Abuja Municipal Area, Nigeria

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11080817 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 817 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nathaniel Mopa Wambebe ◽

Xiaoli Duan

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Air Quality ◽

Health Risk ◽

Health Risk Assessment ◽

Clean Energy ◽

World Health ◽

Particulate Matters ◽

Hysplit Model ◽

Health Organization ◽

General Business

This study focuses on assessing the health risk by particulate matter (PM) inhalation within the Abuja municipal area, Nigeria. Particulate matters (PM2.5 and PM10), HCHO and VOCs were collected by A handheld portable smart air quality detector BR-SMART-126. A hybrid single-particle Lagrangian integrated trajectory (HYSPLIT) model for backward trajectory was applied to tract the air flow (transportation) and potential sources. Health risk was estimated by comparing with the air quality index (AQI) stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO). The result shows that the daily averaged concentrations of PM2.5 varied from 15.30 µg/m3 to 70.20 µg/m3. The top four most-polluted locations (Locations 10, 14, 17 and 18) of the twenty locations were found to be above the acceptable (25 µg/m3) AQI limit stipulated by WHO, which all fell far under the unhealthy AQI value index level. In general, business/commercial locations had the highest PM2.5 level followed by transport/market, offices/mixed use and residential. The results from the backwards trajectories show that the source of local particles for the four most-polluted locations is long-range air transport originating from the Atlantic Ocean. The results of the health-risk assessment implies that for PM2.5, the AQI varied from 73.2 to 280.8 in this assessment. Based on this, the population of workers within the business location are at health risk based on the relatively poor air quality in these areas—especially location 10 and 17. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the regulatory and enforcement agency needs to develop a more robust monitoring mechanism, regulations and enforcement. Furthermore, there is need for a national drive on renewable energy, clean energy for business/commercial district to help reduce fumes from generators and to form cleaner air initiatives in order to ensure a safe environment to live in as well as reduce particulate matters in the city.

Download Full-text

Assessing the Immediate Effect of Covid-19 Lockdown on Air Quality: A Case Study of Delhi, India

Journal of Environmental Geography ◽

10.2478/jengeo-2020-0009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (3-4) ◽

pp. 27-33

Author(s):

Ankit Sikarwar ◽

Ritu Rani

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Spatial Interpolation ◽

World Health ◽

Guideline Values ◽

Distance Weighting ◽

Health Organization ◽

The City ◽

Inverse Distance

Abstract In India, a nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 has been implemented on 25 March 2020. The lockdown restrictions on more than 1.3 billion people have brought exceptional changes in the air quality all over the country. This study aims to analyze the levels of three major pollutants: particulate matter sized 2.5 μm (PM2.5) and 10 μm (PM10), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) before and during the lockdown in Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities. The data for PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 concentrations are derived from 38 ground stations dispersed within the city. The spatial interpolation maps of pollutants for two times are generated using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) model. The results indicate decreasing levels of PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 concentrations in the city by 93%, 83%, and 70% from 25 February 2020 to 21 April 2020 respectively. It is found that one month before the lockdown the levels of air pollution in Delhi were critical and much higher than the guideline values set by the World Health Organization. The levels of air pollution became historically low after the lockdown. Considering the critically degraded air quality for decades and higher morbidity and mortality rate due to unhealthy air in Delhi, the improvement in air quality due to lockdown may result as a boon for the better health of the city’s population.

Download Full-text

Opinion: Insights into updating Ambient Air Quality Directive (2008/50EC)

10.5194/acp-2021-854 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joel Kuula ◽

Hilkka Timonen ◽

Jarkko V. Niemi ◽

Hanna Manninen ◽

Topi Rönkkö ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Ambient Air ◽

World Health ◽

Ambient Air Quality ◽

Adverse Health Effects ◽

Quality Guidelines ◽

Health Organization ◽

Air Quality Guidelines

Abstract. As the evidence for the adverse health effects of air pollution continues to increase, World Health Organization (WHO) recently published its latest edition of the Global Air Quality Guidelines. Although not legally binding, the guidelines aim to provide a framework in which policymakers can combat air pollution by formulating evidence-based air quality management strategies. In the light of this, European Union has stated its intent to revise the current Ambient Air Quality Directive (2008/50/EC) to resemble closer to that of the newly published WHO guidelines. This article provides an informed opinion on selected features of the air quality directive that we believe would benefit from a reassessment. The selected features include discussion about 1) air quality sensors as a part of hierarchical observation network, 2) number of minimum sampling points and their siting criteria, and 3) new target air pollution parameters for future consideration.

Download Full-text

Assessing the immediate effect of COVID-19 lockdown on air quality: A case study of Delhi, India

10.21203/rs.3.rs-31822/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ankit Sikarwar ◽

Ritu Rani

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Spatial Interpolation ◽

World Health ◽

Guideline Values ◽

Distance Weighting ◽

Health Organization ◽

The City ◽

Inverse Distance

Abstract In India, the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 has been implemented on 25 March 2020. The lockdown restrictions on more than 1.3 billion people have brought exceptional changes in the air quality all over the country. This study aims to analyze the levels of three major pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, and NO2) before and during the lockdown in Delhi, one of the world’s most polluted cities. The data for PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 concentrations are derived from 38 ground stations dispersed within the city. The spatial interpolation maps of pollutants for two times are generated using Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) model. The results indicate the lowering of PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 concentrations in the city by 93%, 83%, and 70% from 25 February 2020 to 21 April 2020 respectively. It is found that before one month of the lockdown the levels of air pollution in Delhi were critically high and far beyond the guideline values set by the World Health Organization. The levels of air pollution are historically low after the lockdown. Considering the critically degraded air quality for decades and higher morbidity and mortality rate due to unhealthy air in Delhi, the improvement in air quality due to lockdown may result as a boon for the better health of the city’s population.

Download Full-text

Global Air Quality: An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to Exposure Assessment for Burden of Disease Analyses

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12010048 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 48

Author(s):

Gavin Shaddick ◽

James M. Salter ◽

Vincent-Henri Peuch ◽

Guilia Ruggeri ◽

Matthew L. Thomas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Atmospheric Composition ◽

World Health ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Integration Model ◽

Country Level ◽

The World ◽

Development Goals ◽

Health Organization

Global assessments of air quality and health require comprehensive estimates of the exposures to air pollution that are experienced by populations in every country. However, there are many countries in which measurements from ground-based monitoring are sparse or non-existent, with quality-control and representativeness providing additional challenges. While ground-based monitoring provides a far from complete picture of global air quality, there are other sources of information that provide comprehensive coverage across the globe. The World Health Organization developed the Data Integration Model for Air Quality (DIMAQ) to combine information from ground measurements with that from other sources, such as atmospheric chemical transport models and estimates from remote sensing satellites in order to produce the information that is required for health burden assessment and the calculation of air pollution-related Sustainable Development Goals indicators. Here, we show an example of the use of DIMAQ with the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Re-Analysis (CAMSRA) of atmospheric composition, which represents the best practices in meteorology and climate monitoring that were developed under the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Atmosphere Watch programme. Estimates of PM2.5 from CAMSRA are integrated within the DIMAQ framework in order to produce high-resolution estimates of air pollution exposure that can be aggregated in a coherent fashion to produce country-level assessments of exposures.

Download Full-text

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Ambient Air Quality in China: Atox Quasi-difference-in-difference Approach

10.21203/rs.3.rs-220044/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tuo ZHANG ◽

Maogang Tang

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Human Activities ◽

Ambient Air ◽

World Health ◽

Static And Dynamic Analysis ◽

Premature Deaths ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

Health Organization ◽

Pollution Emissions

Abstract The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) outbreak has provided a distinct opportunity to explore the mechanisms by which human activities affect air quality and pollution emissions. We conduct a quasi-difference-in-differences (DID) analysis of the impacts of lockdown measures on air pollution during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in China. Our study covers 367 cities from the beginning of the lockdown on January 23, 2020 until April 22, two weeks after the lockdown in epicenter was lifted. Static and dynamic analysis of the average treatment effects of treated effects is conducted for the air quality index (AQI) and six criteria pollutants. The results indicate that, first, on average, the AQI decreased by about 7%. However, it was still over the threshold of the World Health Organization (WHO). Second, we detect heterogeneous changes in the level of different pollutants, which suggests heterogeneous impacts of the lockdown on human activities: carbon monoxide (CO) had the biggest drop of about 30% and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) had the second-biggest drop of 20%. In contrast, ozone (O3) increased by 3.74% due to the improvement of visibility. We project that it would reduce the premature deaths related to air pollution by 150 thousand nationwide during the research period, which is much larger than the death due to COVID-19 infections. Third, air pollution rebounded immediately after the number of infections dropped, which indicates a swift recovery of human activities. This study provides insights for the implementation of environmental policies in China and other developing countries.JEL codes: Q51, Q52, Q53

Download Full-text

Green Home: New Application for Monitoring Indoor Air Quality Using Arduino Platform

Journal of Student Research ◽

10.47611/jsr.vi.929 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ameera Ali Al-Fazari ◽

Mahra Said Ahmed Al-Risi ◽

Rasha AbdulWahhab

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Real Time ◽

Web Application ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Pollution Monitoring ◽

World Health ◽

Potential Health ◽

Air Pollution Monitoring ◽

Health Organization

Air pollution is one of the most serious problems facing the atmosphere on the planet. Air pollution is defined as a collection of harmful chemicals and an organic material from factories are emitted in the atmosphere layer and causes many different diseases such as cough, eye irritation and even death. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of deaths per year due to pollution from gases is about 3.5 million. The main objective of this research is to develop a real time air pollution monitoring web application able to detect indoor toxic gases titled Aircom. The proposed application has a special feature in which IoT technology is embedded in one of its units. The main purpose of using such technology is to help individual to check and get real time information about air’s parameters such as Methane, Ethanol, Toluene, CO2, CO, Alcohol, Acetone, LPG, NH4, Benzene and Hexane along with the temperature, humidity and dust. Aircome will be implemented as an integrated pollution monitoring application which consist of MQ-2, MQ-3, MQ-135, MQ-9, GP2Y1010AU0F, GPS,DHT11, ESP8266 Wi-Fi, Arduino Uno board and web server. All the collected data form the suggested sensors are transmitting using Wifi technology to IoT module and in an online database. Moreover, the collected data later can be viewed using web browser which is installed in any of electronic media. The retrieved data will be displayed in the form of tables and graphs. An alert will be send by Aircom instantly in case the level of air‘s parameters reach above normal level. Generally speaking, Aircom will be developed by using different languages such as C++, Arduino, Java, Java script, PHP, html and MySQL. For further verification of our proposal, we employed a quantitative study to check if what we proposed will have positive impact among different samples in the society. The outcome of the survey indicates that using such application helps to protect individuals from the bad air quality and decreases the potential health problems.

Download Full-text

Five-Year Analysis of Air Pollution in Istanbul Including Also the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal of İzmir Chest Hospital ◽

10.5222/igh.2021.78941 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nilüfer Aykaç ◽

Pınar Pazarlı Bostan ◽

Sabri Serhan Olcay ◽

Berker Öztürk

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Air Quality ◽

Nitrogen Oxide ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

World Health ◽

Limit Values ◽

Public Data ◽

Health Organization ◽

The Impact

INTRODUCTION: Particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and nitrogen oxide compounds are the main air pollutants. The purpose of this research is to analyze the five-year air quality of Istanbul and examine the effect of movement restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic on pollutants. METHODS: The public data of the National Air Quality Observation Network has been utilized. The research has been conducted based on the five-year daily averages of PM10, NO2, and NOx pollutants for Istanbul between 2016 - 2020. The data of stations which measured for 75% and more throughout the year has been used. The effect of lockdowns enforced due to COVID-19 was revealed by comparing data of pollutants from April and May of 2020 to the same period in 2019. RESULTS: There were 12 stations between 2016 – 2018, and 39 stations in 2019 and 2020 which measured particulate matter and nitrogen oxide compounds. Only 9 stations reached the standard of measuring pollution for 75% and more throughout the year. The PM10, NO2, and NOx levels measured by all the 9 stations between 2016 - 2020 are above the limit values set by the World Health Organization (WHO). The lockdowns in 2020 have not been helping improvements in air pollution issue. However, there have been regressions of 33.4%, 59.6%, and 52.6% in the overall average particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, and nitrogen dioxide concentrations during the lockdowns between 23-26 of April, 1-3 of May, and 23-26 of May, respectively. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The air pollution issue in Istanbul has not improved in a meaningful and significant manner for the last five years. There is a significant deficiency in measuring traffic pollution. It has been found that two days long lockdowns and physical movement restrictions due to COVID-19 have significantly contributed to a significant regression in the overall concentration of air pollutants.

Download Full-text

Assessment of Air Pollution in the Middle East Using Reanalyses Products and High-resolution WRF-Chem Simulations

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3472 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander Ukhov ◽

Suleiman Mostamandi ◽

Johannes Flemming ◽

Arlindo DaSilva ◽

Nick Krotkov ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Middle East ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Arabian Gulf ◽

Sea Salt ◽

World Health ◽

Ozone Monitoring Instrument ◽

Health Organization

The Middle East is notorious for high air pollution that affects both air-quality and regional climate. The Middle East generates about 30% of world dust annually and emits about 10% of anthropogenic SO2. In this study we use Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications v.2 (MERRA-2), Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Operational Analysis (CAMS-OA) data assimilation products, and a regional Weather Research and Forecasting model (10 km resolution) coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) to evaluate natural and anthropogenic air pollution in the ME. The SO2 anthropogenic emissions used in WRF-Chem are updated using the independent satellite SO2 emission dataset obtained from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) observations onboard NASA EOS Aura satellite. Satellite and ground-based aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations, as well as Particulate Matter (PM) and SO2 in situ measurements for 2015-2016, were used for validation and model evaluation.&#160;Although aerosol fields in regional WRF-Chem and global assimilation products are quite consistent, WRF-Chem, due to its higher spatial resolution and novel OMI SO2 emissions, is preferable for analysis of regional air-quality over the ME. We found that conventional emission inventories (EDGAR-4.2, MACCity, and HTAP-2.2) have uncertainties in the location and magnitude of SO2 sources in the ME and significantly underestimate SO2 emissions in the Arabian Gulf. CAMS reanalysis tends to overestimate PM2.5 and underestimate PM10 concentrations. In the coastal areas, MERRA2 underestimates sulfate and tends to overestimate sea salt concentrations. The WRF-Chem&#8217;s PM background concentrations exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines over the entire ME. The major contributor to PM (~75&#8211;95%) is mineral dust. In the ME urban centers and near oil recovery fields, non-dust aerosols (primarily sulfate) contribute up to 26% into PM2.5. The contribution of sea salt into PM can rich up to 5%. The contribution of organic matter into PM prevails over black carbon. SO2 surface concentrations in major ME cities frequently exceed European air-quality limits.

Download Full-text