Global Clean Air

Introducing Air Tracker: A backward take on air quality to pinpoint sources

By Tammy Thompson / Published: June 13, 2022

EDF’s new Air Tracker tool allows us to better understand how local air pollution behaves, illuminating the path it takes from a likely source area. Because this tool allows us to look backwards at where pollution likely originated, it shifts the focus, putting communities and people first. Developing it required a shift in thinking. 

Most atmospheric scientists focus on particle and air movement to help us predict what’s going to happen in the future. As a scientist working in air pollution, I wanted to use those same principles to look backwards so I could better understand how the emissions upwind of us mix and travel through the air, providing a better picture of what we’re breathing at any given time. This way, we don’t have to model every single source to know what’s important to who and when.

When I joined EDF in 2019, our scientists had already successfully shown how mobile air monitoring programs could highlight dramatic differences in pollution levels within individual city blocks. We wanted to go beyond showing the presence of pollution–and illustrate how it traveled to get there. 

 

EDF and academia joined forces to leverage cutting edge insights.

To do this, we enlisted the help of John C. Lin, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Utah who developed the STILT model (which has since been incorporated into NOAA’s HYSPLIT model). He and his team were already working with our partners at Google Earth Outreach on a source apportionment project. We also tapped Paul Dille (who pulled in Randy Sargent and Amy Gottsegen) from CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, whose Smell PGH application allows users to better understand the pollution landscape in Allegheny County, PA. EDF colleagues Alex Franco, Mindi DePaola and Grace Tee Lewis provided invaluable insight and help as well.

Air Tracker runs on  real-time, trusted, scientific models coupled with air pollution and weather data to help residents, scientists and cities learn more about the air they’re breathing. While Air Tracker is currently mapping fine particle pollution trajectories in Houston, Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh, we designed it to work with other primary pollutants anywhere in the world. 

Air Tracker allows users to trace the path of likely sources of air pollution in Houston, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City.

Filling current air monitoring gaps

Despite advances in low-cost mobile and stationary monitoring networks, existing air pollution tracking is still lacking. Currently designed to provide us with a solid understanding of background air pollution, the federal and state government  system of monitors essentially smudges out the rough edges to create averages, which underemphasizes the very real, very harmful pollution burden many urban–often historically vulnerable–communities face. 

Air Tracker can help counter that averaging effect. It allows users to click anywhere within their city map to see the most likely source area of the air they’re breathing at any given time. 

Beyond the mapping application, it can improve air quality efforts in the following ways:

 

  • Placement of new monitors and networks

For communities that have long suspected they’ve been subjected to dirty air, Air Tracker can help them show that their air is influenced by nearby facilities. This can help them place monitors in specific locations to show just how much pollution they face and when it’s at its worst. 

Cities wanting to get serious about air quality can also use the tool to design either stationary or mobile monitoring efforts. It can also help them answer questions about specific facilities that are known emitters, while spotting ones that may not have been on their radar.  

  • Hold polluters accountable 

Even in cities like Houston–where a lack of zoning has allowed industry to flourish unchecked, putting homes, schools and entire communities in the path of harmful pollution–it can be hard to pinpoint which facilities are most likely responsible for localized emissions. The models behind AIr Tracker’s source area development use wind and weather data to illuminate which pollution sources are the most likely culprits, giving regulators a powerful enforcement tool.   

  • Putting communities and people first

Because Air Tracker can look backwards at pollution’s path, we can start with communities and people first when seeking to map exposure and its impacts. This can help correct for the current distortion of our current air pollution monitoring system, which wrongly assumes all people are exposed equally.  

We know communities face an unequal burden from air pollution. Our hope is that Air Tracker will allow us to better capture and highlight those discrepancies so the people living there can get the relief they need and deserve. Read more about the methodology here.

 

Also posted in Academic, Community Organizer, Concerned Citizen, Houston, Salt Lake City, Science / Comments are closed

Meet Jennifer Hadayia, Executive Director, Air Alliance Houston

By lambrogi / Published: May 25, 2022

Jennifer Hadayia is the Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to reduce the public health impacts from air pollution and advance environmental justice. With nearly 25 years of public health experience, Jennifer leads AAH’s mission and strategies, which include equity-centered research, community-based education and collaborative advocacy.  

 

How did you first get interested in the public health impacts of air pollution?  

I have worked in public health for close to 25 years, and most of that time has been at state and local health departments where I oversaw prevention-focused programs on infectious diseases, chronic disease, and even maternal and child health. I spent a lot of time reading and researching and trying to understand how to help people prevent poor health outcomes.  

Even 25 years later, I still remember the day when my eyes were first opened. I was reading a report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which explained that the number of heart attacks in a community could be predicted by the level of PM2.5 in the air. The impact of air quality on public health was mind-blowing! After years of trying to change individual behavior, it was clear that improving environmental conditions could have a far greater impact on people’s health at a population level.  

Tell us about Air Alliance Houston’s work. 

Air Alliance Houston was formed in the late 1980s as a merger between two groups of residents and parents concerned about smog. We’ve undergone some key evolutions and expansions in the last 30 years to embrace a population health perspective and a focus on environmental justice. Today our mission is to reduce the public health impact of air pollution through research, education, and advocacy.  

We run several campaigns on specific air pollution issues and solutions such as problematic air permits, transportation planning that de-prioritizes Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOVs), connecting air pollution to climate action and community-level air monitoring. But it’s our approach to the work that I think makes us unique: 

  • We inform the narrative about public health and air pollution through an environmental justice lens by uplifting community voices and experiences through participatory research and planning.  
  • We work to build community knowledge and power through the diffusion of accurate information about air pollution, its sources, and how environmental decisions are made in Texas. 
  • We create pathways for impacted and overburdened residents to engage in environmental decision-making and become advocates for their health. 

Is there an upcoming project or initiative that Air Alliance Houston is working on that you’re especially excited about? 

Yes! We’re planning to unveil two new initiatives this year that build on our past advocacy successes, so we can scale our impact even further.  

The first is called AirMail, which is an enterprise mapping system that scrubs air permit applications to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for “bad actors” in Houston’s environmental justice neighborhoods. It then maps the facilities to a public web-based platform and notifies impacted residents via postcard. The map and the postcards explain the air quality impact of the permit (for example, a refinery expansion or a new residential concrete batch plant) and provide actions that residents can take, including connecting to our second new initiative, the Environmental Justice Leadership Lab (EJLL).  

The EJLL is a consolidation of the various training and technical assistance options we provide to community members, so they have the tools and knowledge that they need to speak out against a problematic permit or engage in other environmental decision-making.  

Both of these initiatives have been in the “proof-of-concept” phase, requiring extensive manual time and effort. With the automation of AirMail and the consolidation of our training and technical assistance resources under the EJLL-branded umbrella, we will be able to oppose even more polluters and to empower even more residents.  

Why is clean air important to you personally? 

I was born and raised in Houston. My father and grandfather were dock workers at the Port of Houston, surrounded every day by oil refineries, chemical facilities, tankers and trucks. Growing up, I remember that my father never left the house for work without two things: his cowboy boots and his asthma inhaler. He had debilitating asthma his entire life, and he died young, as did my grandfather, after many years of cancer and heart failure. I don’t think either of them or our family ever made the connection between where they worked and were exposed to poor air quality every day and their poor health and early death.  

Knowing what I do now about air quality and health, I have little doubt there was a connection. I’m deeply proud that I now have the opportunity to work to improve health conditions for Ship Channel families like my own, and to do so with the talented and dedicated staff of clean air advocates at AAH.  

Also posted in Environmental Justice, Health, Houston, Monitoring, Partners, USA / Comments are closed

Traffic-related air pollution results in new childhood asthma. The actions we take today matter.

By Ananya Roy / Published: March 15, 2022

Asthma changes the physical, emotional and academic trajectory of a child’s life. More than 5 million children in the United States have asthma, and every year there are over 750,000 emergency room visits and over 74,000 hospitalizations for asthma among children. Asthma is the leading cause of missed school days each year, and it has been linked to diminished school performance. Although ambient air pollution exposure has long been associated with the worsening of asthma symptoms, mounting evidence indicates that it also leads to the development of asthma among children. 

A recent study found that annually nearly 2 million children worldwide develop asthma due to exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a traffic-related air pollutant. Transportation is a key driver of this pollution. Freight trucks and buses make up less than 10% of the vehicles on U.S. roads, but they are responsible for half of the transportation sector’s nitrogen oxide emissions. In some urban areas, 1 in 5 new childhood asthma cases are due to exposure to nitrogen dioxide; in particular neighborhoods, this risk can be twice as high. 

How NO2 causes asthma

Studies exploring how NO2 affects the lungs indicate that repeated or long term exposure results in activation of biological pathways that contribute to the development of asthma: secretion of inflammatory cytokines, altered cellular structure, oxidative stress, allergic sensitization, increased mucus formation, airway remodeling and airway hyperresponsiveness. Studies of NO2 exposure to human bronchial epithelial cells find an increase in pro-inflammatory mediators and inflammation involved in the pathology of asthma.

A growing body of evidence describes the impact of NO2 on new cases of childhood asthma. It shows consistent and reproducible effects across different cities and populations in North America. Below are a few:

  • In studies of Latino and African American children across Chicago, Bronx, Houston, San Francisco and Puerto Rico, a higher average NO2 exposure during the first year of life was associated with higher odds of being diagnosed with asthma. This was also seen in another study of children in East Boston, Massachusetts.
  • Among 1.2 million children in Quebec, scientists found that higher childhood exposures to NO2 levels at their residential address were linked to increased risk of asthma development.
  • A recent study of 4,140 elementary school children (with no history of asthma) in southern California provides particularly strong evidence.  Scientists found that a drop in nitrogen dioxide, over a period of air pollution decline, was associated with a reduction in asthma incidence. This finding was reinforced when using cutting edge causal methods, which found that “childhood asthma incidence rates would have been significantly higher had the observed reduction in ambient NO2 in southern California not occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s, and asthma incidence rates would have been significantly lower had NO2 been lower than what it was observed to be.”

These are just a few of the studies that have been done in North America. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 41 studies from around the world investigated the impact of different air pollutants on asthma incidence among children. Of these, 20 studies directly assessed the impact of NO2, and found that a small increase (4 µg/m3) in NO2 exposure led to a 5% increase in the risk of developing childhood asthma.

Across these studies, scientists took pains to ensure the findings were not due to other factors like age, sex, race-ethnicity, poverty or smoking in the household. 

We have an opportunity to protect our children’s health

We have an opportunity to protect our children by identifying communities overburdened by NO2 pollution and its sources. 

First, we need to end the blindspots on NO2. We must make the true cost of diesel clear through investments in transparency and accountability. New satellite data and community monitoring can help identify pollution hotspots. Robust funding for NO2 monitoring, analysis and enforcement will enhance existing data to support protective action. The US EPA’s $20 million in grant funding for increased air quality monitoring in communities overburdened by pollution is an important step in this direction.

Better emissions inventories–especially around areas of high truck traffic like ports and warehouses–are important to further illuminate sources and target solutions.

Finally, eliminating harmful pollution from diesel vehicles is crucial. Transitioning to electric school buses, cars and trucks is feasible. New research from EDF finds that by 2027, electric freight trucks and buses will be cheaper to purchase and operate than their combustion engine counterparts. EPA recently proposed stronger pollution standards for medium- and heavy-duty freight trucks and buses, but it needs to go much further in leveraging zero-emitting solutions. Bold clean energy investments by Congress would provide credits to people who purchase electric vehicles, support development of additional charging infrastructure and increase air quality monitoring to ensure that NO2 doesn’t linger in frontline communities.

We must act now to reduce NO2 pollution and prevent more asthma every year. The status quo is clearly unacceptable for our children.

Also posted in Health, Science / Comments are closed

Meet Ethan McMahon, Chief of Party, Clean Air Catalyst

By lambrogi / Published: February 1, 2022

Ethan McMahon is the new Chief of Party for the Clean Air Catalyst, a flagship program launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and a global consortium of organizations led by WRI and EDF. He brings 27 years of experience with the U.S. EPA, where he worked with cities and states to build capacity to address climate change and air pollution, and he advocated to make environmental data more accessible.

What first got you interested in environmental science, and what do you find most interesting about this field?
I started my career as a mechanical engineer, doing things such as evaluating alternative refrigerants. Within a few years I learned about the impacts of climate change and I realized that I wanted to apply my analytical skills to issues that make a difference. This work on the Catalyst interests me because it involves so many dimensions. Technology, human health, collaboration–you need all of these ingredients and more to affect change on many environmental issues.

Why is open, publicly available data so crucial for solving environmental problems?
It’s hard to solve environmental issues because the causes and effects are complicated. In order to present a convincing case to decision-makers you need to speak their language, using numbers and sometimes stories. But you can only crunch the numbers if you can get the data, so it’s critical that data collectors make their data accessible and usable. 

If governments collect data for one purpose, it makes sense to get more value out of the data by making it available for other purposes. For example, EPA collects data on air quality for regulatory purposes, but community groups may want to use that same data to understand if their air quality has suddenly shifted to be worse. AirNow is a great example of how EPA makes their data available for non-regulatory purposes.

How can more data on air quality improve people’s lives?
Air quality affects some portions of the public more than others. For example, some people can only afford to live or work where pollution levels are high, such as near power plants, roadways or outdoor waste burning. The Clean Air Catalyst is finding ways to help people in the pilot cities (Jakarta, Indonesia; Indore, India; and soon, a third city). We use data from existing air quality monitors and analyze where the pollution is coming from. Then we increase awareness of the pollution – and ask people what they experience in their daily lives. Then we collect more air quality data to complement the existing monitors. After we analyze a few dimensions – health, climate change and gender – we evaluate which actions provide lasting benefits and work with communities to implement them.

Is there something about air quality monitoring that you’re especially excited about right now?
I’m really excited about people using data to affect change. They’re thinking beyond the accuracy of individual sensors and focusing instead on how they can use data to make decisions. That’s where the true value is, the benefit to health and society. Communities can use data from a few nearby sensors to understand if air quality is getting better or worse. That might be enough information for people to change their habits and protect themselves, for example by not exercising during hours when pollution levels are high.

What are some goals you have for the Clean Air Catalyst program?
I want the Clean Air Catalyst program to help cities improve their air quality in ways that are effective and sustainable. We’re using a lot of innovative methods in our pilot cities so we don’t exactly know which activities will be the most successful. However, we’ll learn from the experience and share the lessons with other cities so they can make progress easier. In parallel, we’re fostering two types of coalitions. First, we’re bringing several sectors together at the local level. Second, we’re connecting global and local experts so they can collaborate about feasible interventions. Follow our progress and feel free to suggest ways to make lasting improvements to air quality.

Learn more about the Clean Air Catalyst program here.

Also posted in Health, Monitoring, Partners, Science / Comments are closed

New research shows the sources of fine particle pollution vary from country to country—our response should, too

By Ananya Roy / Published: December 17, 2021

While the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated headlines, another invisible and insidious health threat continues to rage, causing lost workdays, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Fine particle air pollution (PM2.5) is the sixth-highest risk factor for deaths globally, accounting for nearly four million deaths in 2019 alone, according to the Health Effects Institute’s (HEI) State of Global Air. A million of these deaths are the direct result of the burning of fossil fuels. Air pollution is a global public health crisis, and we need to take urgent steps to address it.

To mount an effective fight against air pollution—and PM2.5 in particular—we need a better understanding of its sources and impacts, as they vary dramatically from country to country and community to community. This week, HEI released a new report that sheds light on the issue. The “Global Burden of Disease from Major Air Pollution Sources (GBD MAPS)” provides the first comprehensive analysis estimating major sources of air pollution for every country in the world. The study team, led by Dr. Erin McDuffie and Dr. Randall Martin of Washington University in St. Louis, and Dr. Michael Brauer at The University of British Columbia, found that:

  • Fossil fuel combustion contributed to more than one million deaths globally in 2017. Half of that was due to coal combustion; the other came from oil and gas emissions.
  • Major sources of PM5 vary by country and region, and air pollution impacts differ across the globe.
  • While fossil fuel combustion made up most of the PM5 across industrialized nations of the global north, windblown dust was a major source of PM2.5 in African countries.
  • A majority of outdoor PM5 health effects are due to human activities related to the burning of fuel for heating, transportation, industry and other energy needs, suggesting that integrating air quality, energy, and climate policies is likely to bring substantial health benefits.

Different sources had varying impacts across countries.

While coal, oil and gas combustion resulted in a large burden of disease due to air pollution, the fractional share of these sources varied across countries. Residential contributions ranged from 4.0% in Egypt to 33.1% in Indonesia, while energy and industrial emissions combined ranged from 3.2% in Nigeria to 27.3% in India.

The report also tallies the fractional contribution of fuels across different sectors to PM2.5 attributable premature deaths at the country level. This provides additional insight for national action plans to reduce the health burden of fine particulate air pollution. For example, coal from the energy sector contributes to a greater share of attributable deaths (20.5%) in South Africa than from the industry sector (2.7%).  The opposite is true for China, where 4.7% of attributable deaths come from coal associated with the energy sector, while 9.1% come from industry sector coal. The figure from the HEI McDuffie et al report shown here, demonstrates the varying impacts of sources across different countries.

Figure reproduced from the HEI GBD MAPS 2021 report (Mcduffie et al 2021)

Not everyone breathes the same air within countries or even cities

The report also found a  large variation in air pollution and its impacts on health within countries. In 2019, there was a 3-fold variation in economic losses due to premature deaths and disease attributable to air pollution between the states in India. For example, in Pune (where my parents live), annual average fine particulate air pollution levels were 40 µg/ m3 (the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5), while concentrations were below 20 µg/m3 in Kozhikode and over 140 µg/m3 in New Delhi. Differences in economic activity, energy sources, population distribution, agricultural and cooking practices as well as atmospheric patterns, can all cause variations in health burdens across cities .

We know that variation within cities may be even greater. Environmental Defense Fund and our partners found a  5-fold variation in health impacts of particle pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Houston and London, we’ve focused on identifying sources that contribute to pollution hot spots. We are now conducting similar work in cities around the world .

To develop smart strategies to improve public health, policymakers need a better picture of air pollution at all scales—from the country perspective down to the city level. Knowing where pollution is coming from, who it impacts and who is responsible for it provides communities, governments and companies with highly actionable information they can use to develop policies that make meaningful impacts.

Also posted in Health, India / Comments are closed

Air Pollution Research Reveals Exposure Disparities in Bay Area

By Maria Harris / Published: November 19, 2021

After working with EDF and partners to map hyperlocal pollution in Oakland, CA using Google Street View vehicles, researchers Dr. Joshua Apte (University of California, Berkeley) and Dr. Sarah Chambliss (University of Texas at Austin) collected additional mobile data across the San Francisco Bay Area to expand understanding of street-level air quality and disparities in pollution exposure. Their new paper, “Local- and regional-scale racial and ethnic disparities in air pollution determined by long-term mobile monitoring” was published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. It builds on previous work in Oakland published by Dr. Apte in 2017. I recently spoke with Dr. Chambliss about the latest findings.

What were the key findings of this new research?

Dr. Chambliss: In this study, we broadened the geographic scope of our mobile pollution measurements beyond Oakland to neighborhoods across the Bay Area. Throughout the other areas we drove across the SF Bay Area, we saw some of the same types of patterns that we originally described in the original Oakland study: steep increases in concentrations near major roads (especially for nitric oxide, or NO) and some additional localized peaks that could be attributable to other localized sources that we are still working to identify.

We also saw evidence that the types of sources contributing to local pollution differ among study areas: some areas have more prominent peaks for black carbon, others for NO. The mix of pollution is different in different areas around the Bay. We saw that some neighborhoods were much cleaner than others, and some neighborhoods had higher levels of some pollutants but were not higher for every pollutant. Because we had looked at so many different types of neighborhoods, we saw an opportunity to extend the Oakland analysis by also asking: Who lives in the neighborhoods that are more polluted, and how do pollution patterns compare to or interact with patterns of racial/ethnic segregation that persist in the Bay Area?

After connecting the street-level air pollution data with census data, we found that there were systematic differences in pollution exposure across racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, Black and Hispanic/Latino people had 10-30% higher average exposure to NO, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ultrafine particles (UFP) than the population as a whole, while white non-Hispanic residents had 20-30% lower average exposure. The neighborhoods where we measured the cleanest air tended to have higher proportions of white residents, as well. In contrast, neighborhoods where more people of color lived tended to have higher concentrations not just near roadways but in areas of the neighborhood we would consider “background” locations: residential areas where we expect conditions to be cleaner.

Why do these disparities in air pollution exposure matter?

Dr. Chambliss: Air pollution can have major short-term and long-term health impacts. Studies have shown linkages among the group of pollutants we looked at–NO and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), black carbon, and ultrafine particles- with hospital visits, chronic lung and heart disease, with particular risks for the health of newborns and the elderly.

Because air pollution causes systemic inflammation, its impacts spread far beyond the lungs: there is evidence of air pollution affecting cognitive development and diabetes prevalence, for example. Those exposed to higher air pollution are at higher risk of a wide range of health problems. When disparities fall along lines of socioeconomic status or other social vulnerabilities, the health risks caused by air pollution can compound with issues like lower access to medical care or less capacity to handle the financial burden of health issues.

How did you collect such detailed street-level pollution data?

Dr. Chambliss: We had several partnerships that allowed us to achieve this level of coverage. A partnership with Google Earth Outreach allowed us to use Google Street View vehicles to drive “blackout” patterns, where we drove down every road in a study area each time we visited. We also partnered with Aclima, Inc., who installed laboratory-grade instrumentation in these cars and kept the equipment maintained and calibrated for near-daily driving.

We drove two of these “mobile laboratories” nearly every weekday over a 32-month period, visiting different neighborhoods each day and revisiting each neighborhood every 6 weeks or so to collect measurements representing different seasonal conditions.

What kind of policy implications do you see for this work?

Dr. Chambliss: That there are higher pollution levels in neighborhoods with more people of color isn’t a new finding in and of itself, but the level of spatial detail that we could bring to this analysis provided some additional insights. Often, within one neighborhood or several adjoining neighborhoods, there is a wide range in the outdoor pollution levels at different addresses. And these differences do not typically lie along racial/ethnic lines. It’s only when you zoom out to look at city-wide patterns of segregation that you see racial/ethnic disparity in exposures. This is strongly influenced by neighborhoods where the lowest levels of pollutants like NO2 and UFP are higher than even peak levels in cleaner neighborhoods.

This gives us an indication of how policies could be improved to geographically target pollution mitigations to better address disparity and promote environmental justice. Look specifically at communities where the baseline pollution levels are higher and where residents are predominantly people of color. This segregation is often connected with historically racist policies such as discriminatory lending policies or racial covenants built into housing deeds. While those policies may have ended, they leave a persistent legacy placing communities of people of color in areas with higher pollution and greater environmental health risks. To help reverse these patterns of environmental injustice, it’s critical to work to clean up the air pollution sources within those neighborhoods.

What does work like this mean for the future of hyperlocal air pollution monitoring?

Dr. Chambliss: An implication of how localized some pollutant peaks are – a phenomenon that mobile monitoring is particularly suited to measure – is that when you cut emissions from a particular source or type of source, you will see major benefits very close to that source but more moderate reductions everywhere else. If you want to evaluate the full benefits of such a policy, making measurements with fuller spatial coverage may show a magnitude of improvement that wouldn’t be reflected at a single fixed monitoring site. For example, anti-idling policies would help specifically at locations with a lot of truck activity, like ports or warehouses, but it may not be obvious from the outset where the most idling occurs. Mobile monitoring is a way to find those areas that really benefit.

Another thing this research shows is how important it is to spread out measurements over a broader geography as much as possible, given time and resource constraints. It would be great to do a similar study in another US city, because each one has a unique history of growth, industrialization and zoning, and segregation or discriminatory housing policies. It would also be interesting to look at cities outside of the US where urban development patterns, both demographic and land-use related, are much different.

What’s next for you in this field?

Dr. Chambliss: We are continuing to work with these mobile monitoring data to gather further insight into what features of the urban environment lead to pollution hot spots.

 

 

Also posted in Academic, Health, Oakland / Comments are closed

How the Build Back Better Act will help clear the air

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: November 3, 2021

With the Build Back Better Act, Congress has the opportunity to make an unprecedented investment in public health and the climate, particularly in the reduction of harmful air pollution, which disproportionately harms low-income residents and communities of color. 

While many cities across the country have experienced an overall improvement in air quality, residents in neighborhoods from West Oakland, California to the 5th Ward in Houston must still fight for cleaner air, as heavy truck traffic and industrial pollution continue to seriously impact their health. 

woman on ladder installing small air pollution monitor on telephone poll

Hyperlocal air quality monitors have demonstrated how air quality levels can vary street by street.

Air pollution is not evenly distributed across the places that people live, work, play and worship.  A critical step in better understanding and taking action to reduce these inequities in air pollution impacts is to fill in the many gaps in our national air quality monitoring network. 

Historic investments in air quality monitoring 

This bill would help eliminate air pollution blindspots by providing at least $170 million for direct air quality monitoring, a near doubling of federal investment in such monitoring, which has dropped by 20% in real terms over the past 16 years.

It also allocates $50 million to monitor and reduce air pollution in schools that serve students from low-income communities.

This funding has the opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the health and wellbeing of children, as 1 in 5 of all new childhood asthma cases in the United States are attributable to traffic related air pollution. Asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism, accounting for about 14 million absences each school year, or one-third of all school days missed. 

Data-focused investing

The Build Back Better Act also recognizes that historically we have been investing in activities that cause or mitigate pollution with our eyes closed. The bill invites, and in some cases requires, insights about local pollution in order to apply for billions in grant funding available to mitigate pollution.  

Specifically, the bill provides $5 Billion in planning and implementation for pollution reduction, and requires applications to include ‘‘(A) the degree to which greenhouse gas air pollution is projected to be reduced [in] low-income and disadvantaged communities.” Communities would be required to demonstrate how they will verify that pollution is decreasing after receiving the grants. 

It also offers $4 Billion to mitigate or remediate the negative impacts of transportation, starting by monitoring or assessments of local and ambient air quality, transportation emissions, and hot spots of extreme heat or elevated air pollution.

These funds could be especially helpful in communities that bear the greatest cumulative burdens of pollution–those adjacent or downwind of major industries, plagued by heavy truck traffic and/or surrounded by highways–the consequence of systemic racism.  

To address this, the bill includes $3 Billion in Environmental And Climate Justice Block Grants, which could include monitoring and mitigation of air pollution, and facilitate engagement of disadvantaged communities in state and federal public processes.

Opportunities to harness new technology

This bill comes at a time when technology and analytics like satellites and low-cost air pollution monitors are making it simpler to track pollution and its impacts. These insights will be critical to the accountability required by the grants and can help transform our understanding of where air pollution comes from, what it does to local health, and who is responsible. 

With this historic funding, we can put the new, innovative methods to use at far greater scale, fueling a better understanding of how air pollution impacts health at the neighborhood level. With richer, more reliable data in hand, policymakers can focus mitigation efforts on areas with the highest burden and turn to solutions that have the potential for the greatest impact, especially for those who are most at risk.

Also posted in Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Monitoring / Comments are closed

Digging into Freight Pollution Data in London

By Greg Slater / Published: November 1, 2021

Road transportation is a major source of air pollution in London, with heavy goods vehicles one of the top contributors of pollutants that harm people’s health.

The thinktank, Centre for London, has been conducting research this year to look “at how we can create smarter, fairer and more sustainable freight and logistics ecosystems.”

Centre for London was keen to understand more about freight activity in London, like daily activity patterns and how it was affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in the last year. These questions aren’t easy to answer with publicly available data sources. Using supportive traffic and congestion datasets, we were able to produce an analysis that provides a closer look at freight across the capital city – and a special focus on a particular neighbourhood in South London to get a more granular picture.

Here’s what we found. Read More »

Also posted in Health / Comments are closed

The World Bank’s Ernesto Sánchez-Triana on the fight for clean air

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: September 3, 2021

Ernesto Sánchez-Triana is the Global Lead for Pollution Management and Circular Economy for the World Bank, where he manages the Program on Pollution Management and Environmental Health and the Program on Pollution Management and Circular Economy. He recently shared his thoughts on the fight for clean air with Sergio Sanchez, EDF’s Senior Policy Director, Global Clean Air. 

Sergio: Why do you fight for clean air?

Ernesto: My best friend died of lung cancer when he was less than 40 years old. Like me, he had completed graduate studies in environmental engineering. In addition, one of my sons had respiratory problems associated with air pollution that resulted in bronchitis and asthma. This experience, as well as over three decades of working closely with the most vulnerable populations on the planet, have led me to specialize in this area. This is more than a professional obligation for me; it is an unconditional commitment that brings meaning to my life.

Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats the world faces and is the world’s leading environmental risk to human health. Exposure to PM2.5 (particles equal to or less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter) pollution, both outdoors and indoors, caused an estimated 6.4 million premature deaths and 21 million years lived with disability in 2019, according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. About 95% of those deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.

The World Bank has estimated that the annual health costs of PM2.5 pollution are US$8.1 trillion. Thus, in addition to causing pain and suffering, air pollution causes significant economic costs, equivalent to nearly 6.1% of global gross domestic product. Unless ambitious and concrete interventions are implemented, ambient (outdoor) air pollution is likely to increase its health and social burden in the future as low- and middle-income countries continue to urbanize, industrialize, and experience population growth.

Helping low- and middle-income client countries to address pollution-related challenges is indispensable to the World Bank’s mission of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner. The poor and other vulnerable groups, including children, the elderly, and women, are primarily affected by air pollution. They are exposed to higher concentrations of PM2.5 for reasons that include worse air quality in their neighborhoods, reliance on solid fuels for cooking and heating, and occupational exposure.

Sergio: Why do you find this work so critical, especially today?

Ernesto: Air pollution is increasingly recognized as the worldwide public health crisis that it is and a top development priority in fostering the creation of competitive, prosperous cities whose residents and visitors can breathe safe air. Recent analytical work conducted by the World Bank has demonstrated that interventions to manage air quality can deliver multiple benefits. Although the largest benefit is in health—notably through a reduction in premature death and cases of illness—there are additional benefits such as supporting more-livable cities, energy efficiency, reductions in healthcare costs and improvements in agricultural productivity, among others.

Furthermore, some air pollutants—most notably, black carbon and methane—are climate warmers. Black carbon is a component of PM 2.5 and therefore has adverse impacts on health. Consequently, efforts to reduce black carbon have benefits for health as well as for climate-change mitigation.

International health crises, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, further highlight the need for continued action in addressing environmental pollution. Ongoing research is finding close links between air pollution and the incidence of illness and death due to COVID-19. Air pollution can cause cellular damage and inflammation throughout the body and has been linked to higher rates of diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, asthma, and other comorbidities. All these conditions can also increase the risk of death in COVID-19 patients.

Sergio: How does the World Bank help countries reduce air pollution? How much funding is the World Bank financing for air pollution control?

Ernesto: Addressing air-quality management through analytical work, technical assistance, and lending is a top priority for the World Bank. During the period FY2004–FY2020, the World Bank portfolio of lending and technical assistance that targeted pollution amounted to approximately US$49 billion, of which about US$15 billion targeted air pollution.

Sergio: Where do you see the future of air quality monitoring for Low- and Middle-Income Countries?

Ernesto: Establishment of ground-level networks to measure and monitor air and climate pollutants is key. Supporting countries in developing robust plans for managing air quality—plans driven by reliable monitoring data on air quality—provide the basis for implementing projects that reduce high levels of air pollutants in a cost-effective way. Countries need to prioritize establishing and strengthening ground-level monitoring networks that measure fine (PM2.5) and ultrafine (PM0.1) particulate matter to inform the design and implementation of effective and efficient investment and policy interventions to protect human health from air pollution’s adverse effects.

The World Bank, through the Pollution Management and Environmental Health program, conducted analytical work on the potential for applying satellite measurements for air-quality monitoring in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to improve knowledge both on the extent to which satellite measurements can best be used to enhance air-quality monitoring, thus improving estimation of human exposure to air pollution, and on how satellite measurements can be brought into closer agreement with ground-level data, considering the shortcomings and advantages of satellite measurements.

The analytical work found that many different conditions—including mountainous terrains, snow, coasts, clouds, and dust—prevent accurate representations of air-pollution conditions by satellites in the cities tested. Overall, this work suggests that satellites cannot be a replacement for a high-quality ground-level monitoring (GLM) network in any of the cities evaluated, which initially included Delhi, India; Lima, Peru; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and later expanded to include Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dakar, Senegal; Hanoi, Vietnam; Kampala, Uganda; and Kathmandu, Nepal.

In countries with no GLM data available, satellite estimates of surface PM2.5 concentration may have errors in the range of 22 to 85 percent. Establishment of GLM networks that include adequate quality assurance and quality control and follow standard operating procedures to ensure the data are of sufficient quality would likely enable better understanding of human exposure to air pollution specific to an individual city.

Sergio: Why should people participate in International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies (Sept 7)?  What do you see as the role of international collaboration in the fight against air pollution?

Ernesto: The International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies brings a global call for action toward a single, unifying objective: clean air for all by urging countries to work together to tackle air pollution around the world. The International Day of Clean Air plays an indispensable role in spurring action against air pollution. For instance, it strengthens awareness about the significant health, social, economic, and development impacts caused by air pollution and galvanizes collective action to address it.

We have seen how important public-awareness campaigns have been to increase public and private commitments to tackle environmental problems. The Bank has partnered with other organizations to raise awareness among decision-makers and the general public on the air-pollution crisis. In 2018, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Bank organized the First Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health. The conference concluded with a Geneva Action Agenda to Combat Air Pollution to scale up efforts and mobilize action globally. The aspirational goal is to reduce the number of deaths from air pollution by two-thirds by 2030.

Airsheds cross both domestic state jurisdictions and national boundaries, often requiring international collaboration to ensure effective regional air-quality management. For example, international collaboration is needed to address the air-quality challenges of regional airsheds, such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Indus Basin, and the North China Plain; airsheds covering the Gulf States, Western Balkan States, and Turkey; and major urban agglomerations along the coast of Western Africa. International collaboration also plays a role in sharing knowledge and lessons learned from airshed approaches that have been critical in improving air quality in several parts of the world.

International collaboration can also contribute to developing analytical work that can underpin effective interventions, as demonstrated by the World Bank Group’s experience in supporting air-quality management in its client countries. For instance, in China, analytical work supported by the Bank helped to identify the sources of ambient air pollution in Hebei Province, including agriculture, which had previously not been considered. As a result of the findings of the analytical work, the Bank financed interventions to reduce ambient air pollution associated with the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the agriculture sector. In Peru, benefit-cost analysis of alternative interventions to control air pollution informed the design of three development policy lending operations that addressed air pollution through policy reforms in the energy and transport sectors. International collaboration could be used to support analytical work to inform the design and implementation of policy reforms and investments to tackle air pollution, as well as for generating knowledge of a more global nature with application across regions.

While technical assistance, analytical work, and advocacy are key tools for achieving objectives in managing air quality, capital mobilization is critical for ensuring that investments to reduce air pollution are put in place. International collaboration is vital to attract private investors and other stakeholders with an appetite for financial mechanisms for air-pollution control, including results-based mechanisms for payment for air-quality improvements such as green bonds. The very first green bond was issued in 2007 by the European Investment Bank and the World Bank. By 2020, multilateral development banks, private investors, and governments had issued bonds with a cumulative value of more than US$1 trillion. Green bonds illustrate how international collaboration can pilot new financial mechanisms and business models that will unlock significant investments to address air pollution and other sustainability challenges.

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Tackling air pollution and climate justice together

By Ananya Roy / Published: August 24, 2021

By Elizabeth Moses and Ananya Roy

We are seeing the beginnings of the impact of unchecked emissions globally.

Extreme rainfall and flooding in India, China and Germany have destroyed infrastructure and homes. Heat waves have sent temperatures soaring above 100o F (40 o C) for weeks, causing heat exhaustion and mortality. Wildfires ravage forests and smoke drifts across continents painting skies orange and grey, triggering asthma attacks and air quality alerts in cities. The toll of death and destruction from these capture headlines adding to the steady drum roll of disease and death due to air pollution year after year. In every instance the most vulnerable in our societies: children, women, the elderly, those with existing disease and marginalized populations – Indigenous People, those belonging to ethnic or racial minorities and low-income communities, bear a disproportionate burden. Read More »

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