Global Clean Air

Houston may exceed national standards for harmful fine particulate matter, new monitoring shows

By Fern Uennatornwaranggoon / Published: May 4, 2022

Big Gaps in Air Monitoring 

Air quality in the U.S. has improved tremendously over the last 50 years thanks to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, but not all neighborhoods have benefited from these improvements. The law mandated the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and to determine which areas of the country meet the standards and which do not, setting the foundation for air quality management in the U.S. 

Air quality management agencies and EPA rely on data from regulatory monitoring networks that exist across the country. However, these monitoring networks are designed to give region-wide pollution averages, and monitors are often sparsely located. For the 25 largest U.S. urban areas with continuous regulatory monitoring, there are an average of only 2 to 5 monitors per million people. Some of these monitors are intentionally sited away from emissions sources to capture background pollution levels; the trade-off is that they can miss critical pollution hotspots, especially near major sources of pollution. 

This is exactly what happens in Houston, TX. High levels of harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) have for far too long gone undetected. One such area is the Settegast neighborhood, northeast of downtown Houston, where community members have long voiced concern about air pollution from a nearby railyard, concrete batch plants and metal recyclers. Finally, in 2019, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recommended adding a PM2.5 continuous monitor to the Settegast neighborhood at a site on North Wayside Drive to “improve population exposure coverage,” which EPA approved in the same year. At last, the monitor was deployed in May 2021.

Risk of Nonattainment in Houston

Since the deployment, the new monitor has consistently shown some of the highest PM2.5 levels in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) region. The average PM2.5 concentration over the past 11 months exceeds the current annual NAAQS threshold of 12µg/m3, threatening to push the region into nonattainment status for this pollutant. (Table below shows mean concentration = 12.3µg/m3 from May 3, 2021 to March 10, 2022) 

Annual Average PM2.5 Concentrations at Wayside, as of March 20, 2022. Source: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/cgi-bin/compliance/monops/24hr_annual.pl

The review process currently underway at EPA to reexamine the NAAQS for particulate matter is expected to result in stronger, more health-protective thresholds. It is expected that EPA will make the final ruling on PM NAAQS in Spring 2023, which will trigger a designation process for many areas of the country. A more health-protective standard will make it more difficult for the HGB region to remain in attainment unless actions are taken now to reduce emissions.

A nonattainment designation is costly for a region, both in terms of direct costs of pollution controls and the potential larger economic losses from lower business activities and lost investment opportunities. One analysis estimates that exposure to particle pollution in the nine-county metropolitan Houston area contributed to more than 5,000 premature deaths in 2015 and nearly $50 billion in economic damages.

In addition to the annual trend, the Wayside monitor also shows high short-term spikes in PM2.5 concentrations. So far in 2022, the four peak days of PM2.5 concentrations at this monitor are some of the highest in the HGB region, with peak 24-hour concentrations ranging from 22 to 27µg/m3. (See diagram below. Wayside measurements are shown in yellow dots.)

Four Highest 24-Hour PM2.5 Concentrations in 2022 as of March 20, 2022. Source: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/cgi-bin/compliance/monops/pm25_24hr_4highest.pl

Where Is Pollution Coming From?

The Wayside monitor sits ~700ft east of the Union Pacific railyard. Traditionally, railyards and the associated locomotives and drayage truck activity are a major source of particulate matter. Other emission sources adjacent to the site include a metal recycler, a concrete batch plant and several nearby truck yards. Flanked between the railyard and North Wayside Drive is a community that includes a large apartment village, a retirement home, a high school and churches. This railyard is also known to have used creosote to preserve wooden ties, which created an underground contaminated plume that has drifted beneath people’s homes.

EDF and partners are developing a tool that would allow us to investigate the sources of emissions that are measured by regulatory monitors like the one on North Wayside. Early data shows high pollution readings that can be traced to multiple industrial locations in that area. Data also shows that on three of the four highest readings in 2022, the source area is to the west of the monitor around the UP railyard. 

What Should We Do?

It behooves the region to come together now to address this issue before a nonattainment designation is made. EDF and others are reaching out to TCEQ, the Houston-Galveston Area Council, industry groups and community organizations to identify best-management practices that could be deployed to help reduce the elevated PM2.5 emissions.

At the request of EDF and community groups, TCEQ now plans to install a speciation monitor at Wayside to better evaluate the sources on an ongoing basis. While a more thorough analysis is needed to reach any conclusions about potential sources, there are near-term actions that can be taken to protect communities’ health and to prevent Houston from exceeding the NAAQS threshold. 

  • TCEQ should be requiring the railyard, local metal recycling and concrete plants to adopt best management practices. For instance, requiring anti-idling devices be installed on locomotives and upgrading to cleaner engines could significantly reduce emissions at the Union Pacific railyard.
  • Increasing anti-idling enforcement on main truck routes and around truck-attracting facilities can also lower truck emissions in the near-term.
  • TCEQ could also require industrial facilities such as metal recyclers to adopt best practices to minimize both primary and fugitive emissions, including adoption of abatement and control equipment.
  • There is a need and opportunity for broad adoption of zero-emission equipment which is readily available and affordable, as costs have come down significantly in the last few years.  

EDF will continue to facilitate discussions among stakeholders on this issue and support efforts to minimize pollution and help position Houston to meet the current–and future–national air standard to protect people’s health.

 

Posted in Concerned Citizen, Health, Houston, Monitoring, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science, Texas, 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.

Posted in Health, Homepage, Science / Comments are closed

Making the most of sensor data: How tracking performance of lower-cost sensors allows cities to reveal actionable insights about local air pollution

By Dan Peters / Published: February 23, 2022

Lower-cost air quality sensors can be a game changer for cities looking to understand and improve air quality at the neighborhood level. However, issues with accuracy have been a key barrier to their adoption. Our new paper shows how users can make the most of their data by evaluating sensor performance on a continuous basis.

Collocating sensors to track performance

As part of the Breathe London consortium, we installed 100 sensor devices across the city  to measure key pollutants including nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter for more than two years. Lower-cost sensors like the ones we installed are more sensitive than reference-grade instruments to environmental factors like temperature, relative humidity, or even levels of other pollutants. That can make their measurements less reliable in some environments, or even in certain seasons of the year.

To make sure our data was both accurate and useful, the Breathe London consortium developed rigorous quality assurance procedures. For our NO2 dataset, the procedures included multiple methods to calibrate the sensors, as well as applying an algorithm to correct for sensitivity to ozone, which the sensor can mistake for NO2.

While most of our sensors were collecting measurements at new locations across Greater London, we also installed two “test” sensors alongside London reference-grade monitors for most of the project. By tracking when data from these “test” sensors deviated from the more expensive reference instruments, we had an indication of how sensors across our network were performing at different times.

In the left panel, the “test” sensor measurements show a large deviation from the collocated reference monitor (right), indicating a period when the sensor was not performing well.

This approach provided a reality check for our pollution data. If the sensor network reported high NO2 values but the “test” sensors were completely off track from the reference at that time, we could infer that the network result may have been affected by poor sensor performance and adjust accordingly. This kind of ongoing sensor evaluation is important. Without it, users could mistake erroneous sensor data as evidence of major pollution events or local hotspots.

Why performance matters

Our NO2 sensors performed well most of the time, producing data that revealed a variety of actionable insights, including:

  • Times of day and days of week with the highest pollution levels
  • Regional pollution episodes (for example, a multi-day period with high pollution caused by weather conditions)
  • Hotspot detection
  • Impacts of sources on pollution patterns at different locations
  • Long-term trends (for example, seasonal changes or year-over-year improvements)

Improving our understanding of air pollution in cities around the world

While the uncertainties associated with lower-cost sensors may make them unsuitable for some applications, our project demonstrates a way to generate actionable insights from sensors. The Breathe London network’s NO2 data shows that with rigorous quality assurance and ongoing evaluation of sensor performance, cities can utilize lower-cost sensors to better understand local air pollution. That can allow more communities to take advantage of this relatively new technology, even if they do not have the resources to purchase a network of more costly  reference-grade monitors.

Posted in Academic, London, Monitoring, 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.

Posted in Health, Homepage, Monitoring, Partners, Science / Comments are closed

Why emission intensity matters

By lpadilla / Published: January 21, 2022

High-intensity emitters disproportionately pollute the air we breathe. Understanding where sources contribute the most potent emissions can help drive smarter clean air solutions.

Cutting the most damaging emissions from the air can be a bit like picking which foods to limit in your diet. You know the concept—fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins contribute far less to obesity than chocolate cake, cheesy pizza or greasy burgers. Healthy eating means paying attention not only to how much we consume but also the composition of each item.

The same can be true for controlling emissions of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and small particles. Some “high-intensity” sources—like ships, diesel generators and heavy-duty trucks—produce more potent pollution than new, gasoline-fueled passenger vehicles.  In addition, conditions like stop-and-go traffic, larger cargo loads, and driving up hill can increase emission intensity, compared to freely flowing, lighter-duty traffic. Pollution varies from block to block and city to city, so understanding where sources contribute the most potent emissions can help us tailor more effective, local solutions. Our recent paper maps London’s air pollution and hotspots of emission intensity on an unprecedented street-by-street scale.

How to spot high-intensity emissions

In London, our teams used Carbon Dioxide (CO2), a key indicator of combustion, to determine the intensity of NO and NO2 pollution (NOx, in combination). Taking on-road air pollution measurements every second using mobile instruments, we identified local peaks in CO2, signaling recent emissions.  Then we calculated the emission intensity for these events as the ratio of NOx to CO2 concentrations.

Why emission intensity matters

Our measurements coincided with the implementation of Central London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), where highly-polluting vehicles must pay a fee to enter the city center. This policy led to a cleaner vehicle fleet in and around the ULEZ and 35% lower total NOx emissions in the first year, even as overall traffic volume stayed about the same, by effectively reducing the emission intensity of individual vehicles. In fact, the ULEZ has been so successful that the Greater London Authority expanded it to an even larger area.

Emission intensity mapped in Central London. For more information on the image or to read the article, visit the journal Atmospheric Environment.

While the Central London ULEZ and its recent expansion are effective, air quality remains poor throughout London, and hot spots remain. By measuring emission intensity, we understand more about the overall causes of pollution than if we had relied solely on total concentration measurements. By digging deeper, we can show where higher-intensity sources, like heavy-duty diesel, are having a disproportionate impact on air quality. For example, we saw higher-intensity pollution along the Thames river near shipping piers, heavy construction sites and poorly-timed lights that caused traffic jams.

Crafting smart policies to combat air pollution

Equipped with local, street-scale emission intensity data, in addition to more typical total pollution measurements, policymakers in London and beyond can craft tailored solutions to cut air pollution and improve health. Some changes are easy, actionable and don’t require legislation—like fixing poorly-timed traffic lights or enacting anti-idling rules at passenger bus terminals. Other fixes—like limiting the number of warehouses that can be sited in one area to reduce truck traffic, staggering the timing and location of construction projects in order to reduce emissions from heavy equipment, electrifying buses or reducing the number of used, dirty vehicles in operation—would require more political will.

While we need to reduce all combustion-related emissions to achieve air quality and climate goals, using new methods to identify emissions intensity allows leaders to see where the dirtiest sources are, so they can focus initial efforts where tangible impacts are possible.

 

Posted in London, Science / Comments are closed

Here’s how community groups can receive funding for air monitoring

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: January 14, 2022

Hyperlocal air monitoring is a powerful new tool for communities that want to take charge of their air and the health consequences of pollution. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made $20 million available for a new community air monitoring grant program, with no cost-sharing needed. EPA is encouraging community-based organizations to apply for the grants.

The impact of community-driven monitoring is impressive and growing. Interest in community monitoring is inspired, in part, by gaps in the current monitoring networks operated by federal and state governments:

  • Pollution can be as much as eight times higher at one end of the block than the other. This variation has major health impacts: Oakland neighborhoods with higher percentages of residents of color experienced double the rate of childhood asthma from traffic-related air pollution (nitrogen dioxide) compared with predominantly white neighborhoods.
  • Many of the monitors capture data only one out of every six days, and a recent study found that companies pollute more when the government isn’t watching.
  • Satellite data shows that millions of people may be breathing air that doesn’t meet the legal minimum standard in the blind spots around federal regulatory monitors.

Hyperlocal air quality monitors can demonstrate how air quality levels can vary block by block.

Communities are applying local data to a variety of exciting uses. They are securing new regulatory monitors, achieving funding for pollution reductions, reducing truck traffic into waste transfer stations, challenging permits for warehouses, demanding more transparency for truck-attracting facilities, inspiring student engagement, educating residents about health impacts of air quality, and much more.

The funding

The EPA funds are intended “to support community and local efforts to monitor their own air quality and to promote air quality monitoring partnerships between communities and tribal, state, and local governments.” Grant sizes range from $25,000 to $500,000. Eligible entities are states (including the District of Columbia); local governments; U.S. territories and possessions; Indian tribes; public and private hospitals and laboratories; and other public or private nonprofit organizations. $2 million is set aside for tribal governments, and $2 million is set aside for eligible community-based organizations. Projects must be completed within three years.

Further details can be found here. The application deadline is March 25, 2022.

If you believe more funding can help you strengthen hyperlocal monitoring in your community, below are some resources that might help. This is not an exhaustive discussion of application requirements. Applicants should review the information package.

A few resources:

Here are some tips for completing the grant application.

Posted in Community Organizer, Environmental Justice, Monitoring, USA / Comments are closed

Catalogue of Indian Emission Inventory Reports (Jan 2022)

By Kevin Tuerff / Published: January 11, 2022

 

Indian Emission Inventory Report_DIGITAL FILE

(By PAARTHA BOSU, NEW DELHI, INDIA)  A detailed air emission inventory (EI) is a comprehensive list of pollutants within a pre-defined geographical area and is beneficial for developing clean air action plans. It can also test the effectiveness of pilot interventions towards air quality abatement. Emission inventories have been prepared for several Indian cities and states. However, several of these EI reports have not been given due attention. This report presents a database of all publicly available EI reports and several previously un-referred studies for India to help policymakers and scientists prepare reckoner of all the work done in the area.

EI studies have been tabulated as per the source contribution (total emissions, transport, residential, industrial, power plants, agriculture, waste and others) along with details such as geography, grid size, emission factors used, and type of data collected (primary surveys vs secondary literature). Each sector list also consists of the pollutants studied and highlights those reports that have closely followed the existing CPCB guidelines.

As per various operating sections of the Air Act 1981, air pollution monitoring, calculation of pollution load, preparation of emission inventory, preparation of action plan for air pollution control should be done as per the SOPs issued by CPCB from time to time. Therefore, emission inventory prepared by agencies and experts using other methodology may not be tenable per Air Act 1981. In its order for Critically Polluted Areas and Non-Attainment Cities, the National Green Tribunal mentioned that methodologies recommended by CPCB should be followed for such studies.

Robust EI reports form the mainstay of a city’s source apportionment and mitigation strategies. Therefore, scrutiny of the EI reports is required, especially now that all 132 non-attainment cities have been mandated to carry out source apportionment studies. Furthermore, periodically revised emission inventories could help check each sector’s efficacy of control actions. Finally, regional emission inventories now need to be prioritised as the airshed approach has gained prominence in air pollution management in India. About 200 EI reports have been collated and made available with hyperlinks for researchers and policymakers to use. They have also been sectorally classified for ease.

Key Findings

  1. An easy to use ready reckoner of air pollution emission inventory studies for India was created. These reports were catalogued as per sectors; Total emissions, Transport emissions, Industrial and Power Plant emissions, Residential emissions and Emissions from Agriculture, Waste and other miscellaneous sectors.
  2. It was found that only some of the studies followed the CPCB guidelines closely of using indigenous emission factors and primary data for creating emission inventories
  3. Geographically, most of the studies were concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, focusing on Delhi and the National Capital Region. Multiple emission inventories for the same city and region leads to uncertainties. Instead, a common framework for EI development should be followed. EIs should be periodically updated every few years to test the efficacy of interventions. For instance, in the transport sector, EI for the current year could help gain insights on the effects of introduction on BS VI mass emission standards on road transport emissions. In the residential sector, the introduction of LPG in rural households would have led to a reduction in emissions, and this should reflect in the latest EI report
  4. Emission factors will determine the accuracy of estimations. However, our Indian conditions are distinct from our western counterparts. Therefore, relying on the emission factors developed by USEPA might lead to inaccuracies. Thus, the transport sector emission factors developed by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) were used.
  5. Inventories need to be developed for toxics like VOCs and heavy metals like mercury. Doing so will enable the development of standards for these pollutants

Download the report

For further details on the report:

Parthaa Bosu (pbosu@edf.org)

Swagata Dey (sdey@edf.org)

Posted in Academic, Government Official/Policymaker, India, 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.

Posted in Health, Homepage, India / Comments are closed

Profile: Kaushik Hazarika, Project Manager, Clean Air Catalyst Indore

By EDF Web Team / Published: November 29, 2021

Kaushik Raj Hazarika is an advisor for EDF’s air quality work in India and a Project Manager for Clean Air Catalyst in Indore. Clean Air Catalyst is a flagship program launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development and a global consortium of organizations led by World Resources Institute and Environmental Defense Fund.

With a population of 3.4 million, Indore is the commercial hub and most populous city in the state. The city is not meeting the national government’s ambient air quality standards. Reducing air pollution to the recommended levels could save lives, while slowing climate change and addressing social inequities.

Kaushik and Clean Air Catalyst team members are working with local stakeholders and key government organizations like the Indore Municipal Corporation and the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board to tackle the root causes of the city’s pollution.

Kaushik says, “I find Indore’s achievement of being declared the cleanest city for solid waste in India inspiring. It is a testament to the dedication of the public representatives, government officials and general public, and demonstrates what we all can achieve by well-concerted public action. My hope is that Clean Air Catalyst will spur similar innovation and success, making Indore an air quality role model for other South Asian cities.”

Kaushik has been a climate and environment professional in India for over a decade now, working on different issues related to the broader sustainability agenda including  natural resource management, forestry, clean energy, circular economy, waste management and now air pollution after joining EDF and leading Clean Air catalyst in India.

Kaushik has found more success driving the climate narrative into public consciousness in his work to achieve better air quality due to the immediate health risks of air pollution. He hopes to use his previous climate experience in his current work to shape Source Awareness, a key aspect of the Catalyst methodology and achieve better air quality apart from highlighting the immediate health risks of air pollution. He says, “Addressing these issues with an approach backed by strong scientific research is incredibly timely and relevant, and I am very hopeful about what Clean Air Catalyst can achieve.”

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.

 

 

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