Airpollution

 

Project work on Air Pollution

Introduction:

Air pollution is contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment by any chemical, physical or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere. Household combustion devices, motor vehicles, industrial facilities and forest fires are common sources of air pollution.

Pollutants of major public health concern include particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Outdoor and indoor air pollution cause respiratory and other diseases and are important sources of morbidity and mortality. WHO data show that almost all of the global population (99%) breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits and contains high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures.

 

Air quality is closely linked to the earth’s climate and ecosystems globally. Many of the drivers of air pollution (i.e. combustion of fossil fuels) are also sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Policies to reduce air pollution, therefore, offer a win-win strategy for both climate and health, lowering the burden of disease attributable to air pollution, as well as contributing to the near- and long-term mitigation of climate change.

Importance of the Project:

This project on air pollution is important as

Air pollution in countries like India is a serious environmental issue. Of the 30 most polluted cities in the world, 21 were in India in 2019.As per a study based on 2016 data, at least 140 million people in India breathe air that is 10 times or more over the WHO safe limit and 13 of the world's 20 cities with the highest annual levels of air pollution are in India. 51% of the pollution is caused by industrial pollution, 27% by vehicles, 17% by crop burning and 5% by other sources. Air pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 2 million Indians every year. Emissions come from vehicles and industry, whereas in rural areas, much of the pollution stems from biomass burning for cooking and keeping warm. In autumn and spring months, large scale crop residue burning in agriculture fields – a cheaper alternative to mechanical tilling is a major source of smoke, smog and particulate pollution. India has a low per capita emissions of greenhouse gases but the country as a whole is the third largest greenhouse gas producer after China and the United States. A 2019 study on non-smokers has found that Indians have 30% weaker lung function than Europeans.

air pollution effect on climate as

Black carbon, a component of fine particulate matter, is one of the largest contributors to global warming after CO2. Black carbon warms the earth's atmosphere by absorbing sunlight, thereby accelerating the melting of snow and ice.

Objectives:

The main objective of this project is to cut down the air pollution

The overall aim of the proposed research is to further understand the link between air pollution levels and chemical composition and to investigate and assess the effects of air pollution on the distribution of related health impacts, socio-economics and welfare in the countries. In pursuing this aim, the following objectives will be investigated:

High spatial resolution emissions: Performing a detailed common country emission inventory Down to 1 km x 1 km resolution, based on emission databases in the individual countries. Official data available will be used as well as preparation and incorporation of additional spatial disaggregation proxies in order to achieve the high spatial resolution emission inventory needed for the air quality modelling. Different methodologies and proxies used in different countries will be analysed and preferable methodologies recommended. Special attention will be given to sources with large contribution to the total emissions in the affected countries, specifically residential wood combustion. The emission inventory will be conducted in WP1 and will be input to WP2.

Integrated modelling: Setting up of a state-of-the-art advanced and integrated air pollution model system from hemispheric scale, European scale, and national scale, for calculation and assessment of high resolution (down to 1 km x 1 km resolution) air pollution levels and human exposure, including assessing the contribution related to different emission sectors and regions. This work is carried out in WP2. The results will be hourly values of air pollutants, on a 1 km x 1 km resolution covering the affected countries over several decades (input to WP3).

Health effects of air pollution: Investigate the potential causal impact of individual chemical air pollutants as well as mixtures of air pollutants on health outcomes. In pursuing this aim, we utilize the unique population-based registers allowing linkage between historical residential address, air pollutants over decades and later health outcomes. By linking the exposure to health outcomes, new exposure-response relationships are determined of health effects for different population Groups (e.g. age, education, ethnicity, gender, lifestyle, and working life vs. retirement conditions) related to air pollution for the individual chemical air pollutants. The objective will be conducted in WP3.

Assessment and quantification of health impacts: An assessment and quantification of overall negative health outcomes of air pollution in terms of premature deaths, hospital admissions, days of reduced activity, respiratory diseases, mental disorders, etc. on high resolution down to 1 km x 1 km in the affected countries for the different population groups, using the integrated model system EVA, based on the impact pathway chain. The EVA system will be further developed utilizing the new exposure-response relationships found in WP3 and will be carried out in WP4.

Methodology

Assessing the effects of air-pollution is a significant problem in the field of modern environmental epidemiology. When modelling these effects it is important that the models must be epidemiologically meaningful and robust (that is, insensitive to variations in the model parameters). The objective of this paper is to propose a methodology for the assessment of the health impact of air pollution. The proposed methodology involves the construction of models for complex dynamic hierarchical systems in environmental epidemiology and their problem-oriented interpretation.

The principal stages of the proposed methodology are:

Creation of a multivariate hierarchical structural model based on system analysis.

Generation of a mathematical formalization for this model.

Development of a statistical model for a particular study case based on the mathematical formalization, using the generalized estimating equations technique and time-series analysis. At this stage, for a dichotomized dependent variable, a special fuzzy algorithm was used. The algorithm employed fuzzy membership functions instead of the binary variable to obtain robust regression models.

Use of the “multi-layered” approach for model interpretation developed by the authors. This approach involved the creation of special functional time-dependent coefficients that reflect the effect of air pollutants at a given time. These coefficients allow an epidemiological meaningful model interpretation. Thus, they can be used for air-pollution health effects assessment.

Observation

Western Europe, eastern North America, and East Asia, the three major industrial regions of the world, are major emission sources of air pollution (AP) and greenhouse gases (GHG). In East Asia, the fossil fuel consumption in 2005 for the three major countries of China, Japan, and Korea was 1,554M, 525M, and 225M tons, respectively (. These three alone use 21.8% of the world’s energy, adding AP and GHG to the atmosphere and causing environmental impacts, which include global warming and climate change .Strikingly, it has been reported that in heavily polluted China, the poor air and water quality affect about 1 million of the 20 million babies born each year, with about 300,000 babies suffering from visible deformities. According to a World Bank study, each year, about 460,000 people in China die prematurely because of air and water pollution.

Air pollution in India is a serious environmental issue. Of the 30 most polluted cities in the world, 21 were in India in 2019. As per a study based on 2016 data, at least 140 million people in India breathe air that is 10 times or more over the WHO safe limit and 13 of the world's 20 cities with the highest annual levels of air pollution are in India 51% of the pollution is caused by industrial pollution, 27% by vehicles, 17% by crop burning and 5% by other sources. Air pollution contributes to the premature deaths of 2 million Indians every year. Emissions come from vehicles and industry, whereas in rural areas, much of the pollution stems from biomass burning for cooking and keeping warm. In autumn and spring months, large scale crop residue burning in agriculture fields – a cheaper alternative to mechanical tilling – is a major source of smoke, smog and particulate pollution.

Analysis:

Here is a sample analysis of air pollution monitoring in Mumbai India

Mumbai (18.97N, 72.82E) with over 10 million population is one of the most populous city in India and ranks fifth among the most populous cities of the world. With considerable industrial activity and vehicular presence, air pollution is a key issue affecting the human health. Continuous air quality monitoring is being done to identify the patterns in key indicators like SOx, NOx and RSPM (respirable suspended particulate matter). We have analysed the pattern in the changes in these species using air quality data at Sion (19.04N, 72.86E) from 2004 to 2014 and Bandra (19.05N, 72.84E) from 2007 to 2014. . In time series analysis of this 10 years data at Sion we are able to get considerable decay in SOx from 30 to 10µg/m3 and in RSPM from 250 to 150µg/m3because industries are displaced from locality, not much change is seen in NOx from 110 to 100µg/m3. Whereas in case of Bandra there is little increase in SOx concentration from 18 to 20µg/m3while decay in concentration of NOx from 65 to 50µg/m3and in RSPM from 140 to 110µg/m3. The paper attempts to analyze the causes for these pattern changes in terms of industrial activity, changes in vehicular pollution norms and other anthropogenic factors.

Here is sample chart showing sources of air pollution

Resultant and Conclusion:

While the effects of air pollution on materials, vegetation, and animals can be measured, health effects on humans can only be estimated from epidemiological evidence. Most of the evidence comes from occupational exposure to much higher concentrations of pollutants than the general public is exposed to. Moreover, the health effects of smoking and other lifestyle characteristics and exposures confound the observations of air pollutant effects. Ethical considerations preclude deliberate exposure of human subjects to concentrations of pollutants that might produce adverse effects, so evidence from sources other than epidemiology is virtually impossible to obtain. All of the evidence we have suggests that air pollutants threaten human health and well-being to an extent that control of these pollutants is necessary