Monitoring Air Pollution Variability during Disasters

National environmental regulations lack short-term standards for variability in fine particulate matter (PM2.5); they depend solely on concentration-based standards. Twenty-five years of research has linked short-term PM2.5, that is, increases of at least 10 μg/m3 that can occur in-between regulatory readings, to increased mortality. Even as new technologies have emerged that could readily monitor short-term PM2.5, such as real-time monitoring and mobile monitoring, their primary application has been for research, not for air quality management. The Gulf oil spill offers a strategic setting in which regulatory monitoring, computer modeling, and stationary monitoring could be directly compared to mobile monitoring. Mobile monitoring was found to best capture the variability of PM2.5 during the disaster. The research also found that each short-term increase (≥10 μg/m3) in fine particulate matter was associated with a statistically significant increase of 0.105 deaths (p < 0.001) in people aged 65 and over, which represents a 0.32% increase. This research contributes to understanding the effects of PM2.5 on mortality during a disaster and provides justification for environmental managers to monitor PM2.5 variability, not only hourly averages of PM2.5 concentration.

Monitoring Air Pollution Variability during Disasters

National environmental regulations lack short-term standards for variability in fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ); they depend soley on concentration-based standards. Twenty-five years of research has linked short-term PM 2.5 ; that is, increases of at least 10 ug/m 3 that can occur in-between regulatory readings, to increased mortality (Di et al, 2017; Staniswalis et al, 2005; Conroy et al, 2001; Schwartz, 1994). Even as new technologies have emerged that could readily monitor short-term PM 2.5 , such as real-time monitoring and mobile monitoring, their primary application has been for research, not for air quality management. The Gulf oil spill offers a strategic setting in which regulatory monitoring, computer modeling, and stationary monitoring could be directly compared to mobile monitoring. Mobile monitoring was found to best capture the variability of PM 2.5 during the disaster. The research also found that each short-term increase (10-μg/m 3) in fine particulate matter was associated with a statistically significant increase of 0.105 deaths (p<0.001) in people aged 65 and over, a result that is in line with other studies. These findings contribute to understanding the effects of PM 2.5 on mortality during a disaster, and they provide justification for environmental managers to monitor the variability of PM 2.5, not only the concentration.

How the News Media Cover Environmental Issues in United Kingdom: A Comprehensive Study of Mexico Gulf Oil Spill Disaster in 2010

It is widely known that an increasing number of attentions have paid on environmental issues and meanwhile, the mass media promotes its role in helping define the concept and field of environment and also bringing environmental issues into social attention. This paper intends to investigate how news media in covering environmental issues in United Kingdom through the perspective of Mexico Gulf oil spill incident in 2010 particularly. In details, this study focuses more on the study of trends and patterns of news coverage on oil spill disaster during the research process. The sample is made up of two mainstream newspapers in UK (the Times and the Guardian) which are selected based on circulation figures and politically centre-based figures from April 2010 to April 2011. This study employs content analysis as its primary methodology to observe the trends and patterns of news coverage. In addition, this study not only discovers characteristics, trends and patterns of each newspaper but also uses comparative way to discover differences and similarities in order to investigate how national newspapers differ from each other when focusing on the same environmental news. Through the investigation step by step, this study answers the hypothesis and concludes that news media cover environmental issues in a particular ways as they adopt different trends and patterns in coverage while they still have some ways in common.