The effect of air pollution and emotional and behavioral problems on preschoolers’ overweight and obesity

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Childhood overweight and obesity (OWO) has risen dramatically in both developed and developing countries over the past few decades, creating a huge...     

The effects of air pollution on human mortality: does gender difference matter in African countries?

The relationship between environmental factors and human health has long been a concern among academic researchers. We use two indicators of environmental pollution, namely particulate matter (PM₁₀) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) to examine the effects of poor air quality on human mortality. This study explores an issue that has largely been ignored, particularly in the African literature, where the effect of air pollution on human mortality could be influenced by gender specification. We analyse a panel data from 35 African countries and our result suggests that the elevated levels of PM₁₀ and CO₂ have a significant effect on the increasing mortality rates in infants, under-five children and adults. Although the effect of poor air quality on adults is found to differ between genders, such difference is not statistically significant. We conclude that the air pollution effects, on average, are similar between genders in the African countries.     

Industrial air pollution: British progress—a review

Recent Annual Reports on industrial air pollution issued by the U.K. Health and Safety Executive show that considerable progress has been made. Further “Presumptive Limits of Emission” and “Notes on Best Practicable Means” have been published by H.M. Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate. The lists given in this journal [9, 709 (1975)] are extended in the Appendices. An abstract is given of BPM for oil refineries.Heavy smoke from blue brick manufacture and from shaft lime kilns has been eliminated by gas firing. Steps have been taken to reduce emissions of vinyl chloride, PCBs, compounds of fluorine and of toxic metals, As, Sb, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Sn, Zn and radioactives. Reduction of low-level emissions is a continuing problem in improving local amenity. Considerable attention has been paid to continuous monitoring of massive emissions and of concentrations of pollutants outside factories, including odours. Arrestment equipment supplied to small firms has given trouble through poor design of components and monitors, inadequate help by suppliers during commissioning, and by lack of training and correct maintenance by management; tight specifications requiring quality engineering should be prepared by purchasers.Lectures to workers, backed by booklets, are assisting in making difficult works better neighbours.The Inspectorate has six sampling teams, mainly for dust, and nine task groups for special programmes. A computer programme for calculation of ground concentrations from multiple sources is assisting inspectors to assess complex situations.It is the author's opinion that research workers on environmental problems should examine these Reports to find more industrial subjects for study.     

Do plant traits help to design green walls for urban air pollution control? A short review of scientific evidences and knowledge gaps

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - It is often claimed that green walls (GW) and living wall systems (LWS) have a positive effect on urban air pollution problems if their plants...     

Interpretation of air pollution mortality: number of deaths or years of life lost?

This paper examines the relation between the results of epidemiologic studies of air pollution mortality and impact indicators that can be informative for environmental policy decisions. Using models that are simple and transparent, yet contain the essential features, it is shown that (1) number of deaths is not meaningful for air pollution, whereas loss of life expectancy (LLE) is an appropriate impact indicator; (2) the usual short-term (time series) studies yield a change in daily number of deaths attributable to acute effects of pollution, without any information on the associated LLE (although some information on this has recently become available by extending the observation window of time series); and (3) long-term studies yield a change in age-specific mortality, which makes it possible to calculate the total population averaged LLE (acute and chronic effects) but not the total number of premature deaths attributable to air pollution. The latter is unobservable because one cannot distinguish whether few individuals suffer a large or many suffer a small LLE. The paper calculates the LLE from exposure to PM10, as implied by the long-term mortality studies of adults and infants; population LLE for infants turns out to be an order of magnitude smaller than for adults. The LLE implied by short-term studies is a small fraction of the total loss implied by long-term studies, even if one assumes a very high loss per death. Applied to environmental policy, taking a permanent 50-70% reduction of PM10 as a reasonable goal, one finds a corresponding increase of average life expectancy in urban areas of the European Union (EU) and the United States of approximately four months.     

Culture,nature and particulate matter – Hybrid reframings in air pollution scholarship

Air pollution is a thoroughly hybrid phenomenon. It is composed of inseparable physical, scientific, cultural, social, economic and political dimensions. It is both an object of environmental science and embedded in our everyday social and cultural worlds. Nevertheless, much air pollution scholarship focuses solely on the physical dimensions of air pollution which are expressed quantitatively and pays little or no regard to the identities, discourses, bodies and emotions which constitute and are constituted by air pollution as a physical reality. This article argues for a more reflexive and hybrid approach to air pollution research which bridges intellectually confining binaries. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour and other actor–network theorists, it argues that if we can let go of a foundational nature, disrupt our humanism and take non-scientific knowledges seriously, we might develop a new respect for the atmospheric environment and begin the task of building a better common world.     

Ambient and household air pollution on early-life determinants of stunting—a systematic review and meta-analysis

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Stunting is an important risk factor for early growth and health implications throughout the life course, yet until recently, studies have rarely...     

Can pine needles indicate trends in the air pollution levels at remote sites?

Data from ten years of integrated monitoring were used here to evaluate whether pine needles are a feasible tool for an assessment of long-term trends of the atmospheric contamination. Pine needles collected once a year were compared to high volume air samples collected for 24 h, every 7 days, and passive air samples integrated over 28-day periods. Results showed the same concentration patterns of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) captured in needles and high volume samples. Passive air samplers were less efficient in sampling the particle-bound compounds. Theoretical air volume equivalent to each needle sample (V_EQ) was calculated as a ratio of the needle concentration over the mean air concentration. Results indicated different equivalent volumes for PAHs and organochlorines, possibly due to the faster degradation rates of PAHs in needles. The most important finding is that in the long term a needle monitoring gives very similar information on temporal trends of the atmospheric pollution as does a high volume air monitoring.     

How does biased technological progress affect haze pollution? Evidence from APEC economies

Biased technological progress is the act of energy conservation and emission reduction by changing the marginal rate of substitution. In this study, we introduced renewable energy into a production function, and proposed a method of identifying biased characteristics of technological progress, based on marginal productivity theory. A panel dataset for the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies from 2000 to 2017 was analyzed to explore the effect of biased technological progress in reducing particulate matter (PM_2.5). We found that input biased technological progress tended to use more non-renewable energy. Input biased technological progress aggravated haze pollution; however, this effect decreased as the PM_2.5 concentration increased. Output biased technological progress significantly reduced haze pollution in high-income economies, but increased it in low-income economies. The effect of neutral technological progress on haze pollution was the opposite of the effect from output biased technological progress. We also found that increasing renewable energy consumption and reducing energy intensity were separate effective paths for input and output biased technological progress, respectively, to mitigate haze pollution. For neutral technological progress, improving total factor productivity was an important way to mitigate haze pollution. Finally, several policy recommendations are proposed to mitigate haze pollution in APEC economies.

     

Organopesticides and fertility: where does the link lead to?

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Organopesticides (OPs) are a group of various synthetic chemicals prevalently used in agriculture and homestead plantations. OPs were originally...     

Digitalization and environment: how does ICT affect enterprise environmental performance?

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Despite the increasing use of digital technology in industrial production, how industrial digitalization affects the environmental performance of...     

Development and evaluation of air pollution–linked quality of life (AP-QOL) questionnaire: insight from two different cohorts

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this study, the air pollution–related quality of life (AP-QOL) questionnaire was carried out in two geographically and economically different...     

Comparison of palladium and platinum in environmental matrices: Palladium pollution by automobile emissions?

A new type of automobile catalyst based on an active Pd/Rh-layer is presently being introduced into the European market. Accordingly, in order to establish baseline information, this work attempts to assess the magnitude of Pd emissions by automobile catalysts to date. Thus, a survey is presented on Pd and Pt levels detected in polluted environmental matrices (grass, soil, dust, sludges) as available from the literature. Additionally, Pd data measured by selective preconcentration/GF-AAS-detection in polluted grass, in a time series of sewage sludge ashes back to 1972, in dust, as well as in urban rain are presented. Since the data basis from the literature is partly inconsistent, the possible impact of different analytical attempts on the data is discussed. The relationship between Pt and Pd concentration from most of the results is between 5 and 10 (Pt/Pd). However, relations down to 0.04 are also reported, thus implying anthropogenic Pd input from additional sources.     

Mesoscale air pollution dispersion models—II. Lagrangian puff model and comparison with Eulerian GRID model

A Lagrangian PUFF model has been developed to describe the mesoscale SO₂ concentration fields for a 400 km side square containing The Netherlands. The model is vertically stratified in three atmospheric layers. It can describe the major concentration variability in space and time. By application of a plume segment approach the spatial resolution of 15 km can be increased to about 1 km; on these smaller geographic scales the model is compatible with the conventional Gaussian plume model. The model performance is satisfying: spatial correlations are in the order of 0.7 and probably can be increased by updating the emission inventory. In mesoscale applications, the Lagrangian PUFF model has a higher computational efficiency than the comparable GRID model.     

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigations of lichens – 1: effects of air pollution

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigations were carried out on more than 800 samples of lichens from Lower Silesia, southwest Poland. A statistically confirmed correlation between annual average concentration of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere and concentration of semiquinone radicals in Hypogymnia physodes thalli was found. Similar results were obtained for Umbilicaria species from the Karkonosze Mountains. Distribution of semiquinone radicals in lichen thalli was also investigated. The action of nitrogen dioxide on Umbilicaria species resulted in the synthesis of iminoxy radicals in the thalli. The intensification of the semiquinone free radical production in lichen thalli from atmospherically polluted environments and the degradation of lichen acids to β-diketone compounds would appear to be parallel processes. The properties of the iminoxyls derived from β-diketones in the lichen matrix (anisotropic spectra at room temperature) and in organic solutions after extraction procedure were also examined by EPR.     

Removal and biosorption of C₆₀ from water by an aquatic plant, Ceratophyllum sp

The fate of fullerene water suspension (FWS) in an aquatic system of Ceratophyllum sp., a rootless submerged plant, under non-sterile sediment-free conditions was investigated. Fast removal of FWS from water by the plants was observed and irreversible adsorption of C₆₀ onto plants and increasing C₆₀ mass on the plant surface with prolonged exposure durations were confirmed. An intact plant extraction procedure was developed and the majority (>80%) of C₆₀ removed from water was extracted from the plants. C₆₀ remained aggregated after being associated with the plants, which was verified by ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. Light micrographs showed association of FWS on and in the cuticle layers.     

Understanding the patterns and processes underlying water quality and pollution risk in West–Africa River using self-organizing maps and multivariate analyses

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Rivers are dynamic systems in complex interactions with their surrounding environments. Reliable and fast interpretation of water quality is therefore...