| 1. |
- Beelen, Rob, et al.
(författare)
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Natural-Cause Mortality and Long-Term Exposure to Particle Components : An Analysis of 19 European Cohorts within the Multi-Center ESCAPE Project
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives. - : Environmental Health Perspectives. - 0091-6765 .- 1552-9924. ; 123:6, s. 525-533
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Studies have shown associations between mortality and long-term exposure to particulate matter air pollution. Few cohort studies have estimated the effects of the elemental composition of particulate matter on mortality. Objectives: Our aim was to study the association between natural-cause mortality and long-term exposure to elemental components of particulate matter. Methods: Mortality and confounder data from 19 European cohort studies were used. Residential exposure to eight a priori-selected components of particulate matter ( PM) was characterized following a strictly standardized protocol. Annual average concentrations of copper, iron, potassium, nickel, sulfur, silicon, vanadium, and zinc within PM size fractions <= 2.5 mu m (PM2.5) and <= 10 mu m (PM10) were estimated using land-use regression models. Cohort-specific statistical analyses of the associations between mortality and air pollution were conducted using Cox proportional hazards models using a common protocol followed by meta-analysis. Results: The total study population consisted of 291,816 participants, of whom 25,466 died from a natural cause during follow-up (average time of follow-up, 14.3 years). Hazard ratios were positive for almost all elements and statistically significant for PM2.5 sulfur (1.14; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.23 per 200ng/m(3)). In a two-pollutant model, the association with PM2.5 sulfur was robust to adjustment for PM2.5 mass, whereas the association with PM2.5 mass was reduced. Conclusions: Long-term exposure to PM2.5 sulfur was associated with natural-cause mortality. This association was robust to adjustment for other pollutants and PM2.5.
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| 2. |
- de Hoogh, Kees, et al.
(författare)
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Comparing land use regression and dispersion modelling to assess residential exposure to ambient air pollution for epidemiological studies
- 2014
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Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier BV. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 73, s. 382-392
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Land-use regression (LUR) and dispersion models (DM) are commonly used for estimating individual air pollution exposure in population studies. Few comparisons have however been made of the performance of these methods. Objectives: Within the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) we explored the differences between LUR and DM estimates for NO2, PM10 and PM2.5. Methods: The ESCAPE study developed LUR models for outdoor air pollution levels based on a harmonised monitoring campaign. In thirteen ESCAPE study areas we further applied dispersion models. We compared LUR and DM estimates at the residential addresses of participants in 13 cohorts for NO2; 7 for PM10 and 4 for PM2.5. Additionally, we compared the DM estimates with measured concentrations at the 20-40 ESCAPE monitoring sites in each area. Results: The median Pearson R (range) correlation coefficients between LUR and DM estimates for the annual average concentrations of NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 were 0.75 (0.19-0.89), 0.39 (0.23-0.66) and 0.29 (0.22-0.81) for 112,971 (13 study areas), 69,591 (7) and 28,519(4) addresses respectively. The median Pearson R correlation coefficients (range) between DM estimates and ESCAPE measurements were of 0.74(0.09-0.86) for NO2; 0.58 (0.36-0.88) for PM10 and 0.58 (0.39-0.66) for PM2.5. Conclusions: LUR and dispersion model estimates correlated on average well for NO2 but only moderately for PM10 and PM2.5, with large variability across areas. DM predicted a moderate to large proportion of the measured variation for NO2 but less for PM10 and PM2.5.
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| 3. |
- Denby, Bruce, et al.
(författare)
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ESTIMATING DOMESTIC WOOD BURNING EMISSIONS OF PARTICULATE MATTER IN TWO NORDIC CITIES BY COMBINING AMBIENT AIR OBSERVATIONS WITH RECEPTOR AND DISPERSION MODELS
- 2010
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Ingår i: Chemical Industry and Chemical Engineering Quarterly. - 1451-9372. ; 16:3, s. 237-241
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The major emission source of primary PM2 (5) in many Nordic countries is wood burning for domestic heating Though direct measurements of wood burning emissions are possible under controlled conditions, emission inventories for urban scale domestic heating are difficult to calculate and remain uncertain As an alternative method for estimating these emissions, this paper makes use of ambient air measurements chemical analysis of filter samples receptor models, dispersion models, and simple inverse modelling methods to infer the emission strengths A comparison of dispersion models with receptor models indicates that the dispersion models tend to overestimate the contribution from wood burning The inverse modelling results are found to agree with those from the receptor modelling Though both the receptor and inverse modelling point to an overestimation of the wood burning emissions of PM2 (5), it is not possible to assign this solely to errors in the emissions inventory as a dispersion model error can be significant It is recommended to improve plume rise and urban canopy meteorological descriptions in the dispersion models before these models are of sufficient quality to allow quantitative assessments of emission inventories
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| 4. |
- Klein, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Interactions of physical, chemical, and biological weather calling for an integrated approach to assessment, forecasting, and communication of air quality.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 41:8, s. 851-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article reviews interactions and health impacts of physical, chemical, and biological weather. Interactions and synergistic effects between the three types of weather call for integrated assessment, forecasting, and communication of air quality. Today's air quality legislation falls short of addressing air quality degradation by biological weather, despite increasing evidence for the feasibility of both mitigation and adaptation policy options. In comparison with the existing capabilities for physical and chemical weather, the monitoring of biological weather is lacking stable operational agreements and resources. Furthermore, integrated effects of physical, chemical, and biological weather suggest a critical review of air quality management practices. Additional research is required to improve the coupled modeling of physical, chemical, and biological weather as well as the assessment and communication of integrated air quality. Findings from several recent COST Actions underline the importance of an increased dialog between scientists from the fields of meteorology, air quality, aerobiology, health, and policy makers.
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| 5. |
- Laurén, Ari, et al.
(författare)
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Nitrogen and Carbon Dynamics and the Role of Enchytraeid Worms in Decomposition of L, F and H Layers of Boreal Mor
- 2012
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Ingår i: Water, Air and Soil Pollution. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0049-6979 .- 1573-2932. ; 223:7, s. 3701-3719
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Decomposition of organic material releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and ammonium (NH4-N) into soil water. Each of the decomposition products contributes differently to overall export of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) to water courses. Our aim was to study the quantity and composition of the released C and N as affected by the organic material and soil fauna, represented by enchytraeid worms. We measured the release rate of carbon dioxide, and calculated the release rates for DOC and dissolved N in soil from repeated measurements of DOC and N pools during laboratory incubation of litter (L), fermented (F) and humus (H) layers of boreal forest mor. The intermediate decomposition products, DOC and DON, were characterised according to the molecule size. The release rate of the decomposition products was higher for fresh than for old organic material. The majority of N and C were released as NH4-N and CO2, respectively. The amount of extractable organic N in soil decreased by time but DON increased. Enchytraeids stimulated N mineralisation and the release of large molecule size DOC, particularly in L layer. The results suggest that organic N in extractable form biodegrades effectively, and that soil fauna have an important role in the decomposition. The results were interpreted from the water quality point of view and the implications of the results to modelling of decomposition and export of DOC and dissolved N to recipient water bodies are discussed. In the modelling context, the novelty of the study is the description of the intermediate decomposition products and the division of the dissolved organic compounds into low molecular weight and high molecular weight fractions.
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| 6. |
- Orru, Hans, et al.
(författare)
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Health impacts of PM2.5 originating from residential wood combustion in four nordic cities
- 2022
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Ingår i: BMC Public Health. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2458. ; 22:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Residential wood combustion (RWC) is one of the largest sources of fine particles (PM2.5) in the Nordic cities. The current study aims to calculate the related health effects in four studied city areas in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark.Methods: Health impact assessment (HIA) was employed as the methodology to quantify the health burden. Firstly, the RWC induced annual average PM2.5 concentrations from local sources were estimated with air pollution dispersion modelling. Secondly, the baseline mortality rates were retrieved from the national health registers. Thirdly, the concentration-response function from a previous epidemiological study was applied. For the health impact calculations, the WHO-developed tool AirQ + was used.Results: Amongst the studied city areas, the local RWC induced PM2.5 concentration was lowest in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (population-weighted annual average concentration 0.46 µg m− 3) and highest in Oslo (2.77 µg m− 3). Each year, particulate matter attributed to RWC caused around 19 premature deaths in Umeå (95% CI: 8–29), 85 in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (95% CI: 35–129), 78 in Copenhagen (95% CI: 33–118), and 232 premature deaths in Oslo (95% CI: 97–346). The average loss of life years per premature death case was approximately ten years; however, in the whole population, this reflects on average a decrease in life expectancy by 0.25 (0.10–0.36) years. In terms of the relative contributions in cities, life expectancy will be decreased by 0.10 (95% CI: 0.05–0.16), 0.18 (95% CI: 0.07–0.28), 0.22 (95% CI: 0.09–0.33) and 0.63 (95% CI: 0.26–0.96) years in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Umeå, Copenhagen and Oslo respectively. The number of years of life lost was lowest in Umeå (172, 95% CI: 71–260) and highest in Oslo (2458, 95% CI: 1033–3669).Conclusions: All four Nordic city areas have a substantial amount of domestic heating, and RWC is one of the most significant sources of PM2.5. This implicates a substantial predicted impact on public health in terms of premature mortality. Thus, several public health measures are needed to reduce the RWC emissions.
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| 7. |
- Wang, Meng, et al.
(författare)
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Long-term exposure to elemental constituents of particulate matter and cardiovascular mortality in 19 European cohorts : Results from the ESCAPE and TRANSPHORM projects
- 2014
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Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier BV. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 66, s. 97-106
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Associations between long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) and cardiovascular (CVD) mortality have been widely recognized. However, health effects of long-term exposure to constituents of PM on total CVD mortality have been explored in a single study only. Aims: The aim of this study was to examine the association of PM composition with cardiovascular mortality. Methods: We used data from 19 European ongoing cohorts within the framework of the ESCAPE (European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects) and TRANSPHORM (Transport related Air Pollution and Health impacts Integrated Methodologies for Assessing Particulate Matter) projects. Residential annual average exposure to elemental constituents within particle matter smaller than 2.5 and 10 pm (PM2.5 and PM10) was estimated using Land Use Regression models. Eight elements representing major sources were selected a priori (copper, iron, potassium, nickel, sulfur, silicon, vanadium and zinc). Cohort-specific analyses were conducted using Cox proportional hazards models with a standardized protocol. Random-effects metaanalysis was used to calculate combined effect estimates. Results: The total population consisted of 322,291 participants, with 9545 CVD deaths. We found no statistically significant associations between any of the elemental constituents in PM2.5 or PM10 and CVD mortality in the pooled analysis. Most of the hazard ratios (HRs) were close to unity, e.g. for PM10 Fe the combined HR was 0.96 (0.84-1.09). Elevated combined HRs were found for PM2.5 Si (1.17, 95% Cl: 0.93-1.47), and S in PM2.5 (1.08,95% Cl: 0.95-1.22) and PM10 (1.09,95% Cl: 0.90-132). Conclusion: In a joint analysis of 19 European cohorts, we found no statistically significant association between long-term exposure to 8 elemental constituents of particles and total cardiovascular mortality.
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| 8. |
- Ytreberg, Erik, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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EMERGE deliverable 6.1. Baltic and North Sea report
- 2023
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Shipping is responsible for a range of different pressures affecting air quality, climate, and the marine environment. However, most social and economic analysis of shipping have focused on air pollution assessment and how shipping may impact climate change and human health. This risks policies to be biased towards air pollution and climate change, while trading off impacts on the marine environment. One example is the IMO’s global sulphur cap, which requires shipowners to use a compliant fuel with a sulphur content of 0.5% (0.1% in SECA regions) or use alternative compliance options (scrubbers) that are effective in reducing sulphur oxide (SOX) emissions to the atmosphere. The scrubber process results in large volumes of acidic discharge water. Although regulations primarily target SOX removal, other pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals are transferred from the exhausts to the wash water and subsequently discharged to the marine environment. The aim of this deliverable has therefore been to develop a holistic framework to evaluate the impacts of shipping emissions, particularly those related to scrubbers, on the marine environment, human health, climate, and economy. The structure of this deliverable follows the well-established DAPSIR (Driver-Activity-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) framework, under which information, findings and conclusions from previous work packages are synthesized and integrated, including experiments of direct emissions from shipping to the marine environment (WP2) and the atmosphere (WP3), assessment of marine environmental impacts (WP2, WP4 and WP6), as well as human health and climate change impacts (WP5 and WP6). Finally, this deliverable provides recommendations and guidance for stakeholders and policymakers. The assessment is performed using a baseline scenario (year 2018) and three future scenarios (for year 2050) based on different projected future developments of shipping transport volumes and considering the development of ships regarding fuel efficiency and ship size. In this deliverable, we focused primarily on two of the different future scenarios, scenario 3 (high scrubber pressure) and scenario 8 (high use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and methanol). The marine environmental risk assessment, performed in the Öresund region for the baseline scenario (2018), showed unacceptable risks when ships in the area were using open loop scrubbers. In the assessment, modelled predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) of open loop scrubber discharge water exceeded the tolerable marine threshold value (predicted no-effect concentration, PNEC) in almost the entire Öresund region. The PEC value was derived based on ship activity and discharges of scrubber water in 2018, while the PNEC value was derived based on the ecotoxicological assays performed within the EMERGE project. Notably, the modelling of open loop scrubber discharge water was performed using the ship traffic activity in 2018 when less than 200 ships in the Baltic Sea used scrubbers, collectively releasing 192 million tonnes of discharge water. By 2022 there were approximately 800 ships equipped with scrubbers in the Baltic Sea. In the high scrubber future scenario (S3) in 2050 this led to an assumption of the considerably higher scrubber water discharge (1740 million tonnes), representing almost one order of magnitude higher compared to our baseline scenario in 2018. In addition, our impact assessment, following Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) guidelines, shows that a ban on discharge water from scrubbers should be considered in the entire Baltic and North Sea region, since all sea basins in the region fail to reach good environmental status (GES) as defined by the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (Directive 2008/56/EC). However, the costs of such a measure for the shipping sector (banning discharges from scrubbers, i.e., in practice a ban on scrubbers) have been questioned within the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Therefore, EMERGE also focused on analysing to what extent the global scrubber fleet has reached break-even on their scrubber installations and the potential monetary gain of using Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) as compared to the more expensive Marine Gas Oil (MGO) or Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (VLSFO). Our results showed that 51% of the global scrubber fleet had reached break-even by the end of 2022, resulting in a summarised balance of 4.7 billion €2019. In addition, the marine ecotoxicity damage cost, by not restricting scrubbers in the Baltic Sea Area, accumulated to >680 million €2019 from 2015 to end of 2022. For air quality, both future scenarios showed a decrease in shipping contribution to PM2.5 exposure by a factor of 2 to 3 compared to our baseline scenario in 2018. Scenario 8 is somewhat more efficient in decreasing the shipping originated PM2.5 than scenario 3. Using the Greenhouse gas and Air pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model for human health impact assessment in scenario 3 revealed the loss of life expectancy in most areas around the Baltic Sea, when considering all sources, to be limited to two to four months. However, the differences in life shortening between Scenarios 3 and 8 are two to three orders of magnitude lower when compared to human health impacts resulting from all sources, indicating that scrubbers alone have a minor impact on human health in the Baltic region from air quality perspective. For Öresund case the shipping-related health impacts from PM2.5 represented approximately 10% of the total burden of air pollution, in 2050 scenario simulations this burden decreased to 7-9%. Important improvement of air quality in the scenario simulations come also from reduction of NO2 which is a criteria pollutant regulated by the Air Quality Directive, where the decrease is 3 to 5-fold. In relative terms the shipping contribution to NO2 concentration levels, however, maintains similar, approximately 25%, as the land emissions are also expected to decrease. The GAINS health impact assessment for the Baltic Sea was compared to the Solent region using a statistical technique. The latter study showed that a relatively small fraction of all premature deaths in Southampton, Portsmouth, Poole, Christchurch & Bournemouth are attributable to air pollution from shipping, corroborating the conclusion that the deployment scrubbers alone has a minor impact on human life shortening through atmospheric transport.
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