ALBERT

Description: We have developed an integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors, which can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. Central for the system is a newly developed tagging method capable of calculating the contribution from a specific emission source or sector to the overall air pollution levels, taking into account the non-linear atmospheric chemistry. The main objective of this work is to identify the anthropogenic emission sources in Europe and Denmark that contribute the most to human health impacts. In this study, we applied the EVA system to Europe and Denmark, with a detailed analysis of health-related external costs from the ten major emission sectors and their relative contributions. The paper contains a thorough description of the EVA system, the main results from the assessment of the main contributors and a discussion of the most important atmospheric chemical reactions relevant for interpreting the results. The main conclusion from the analysis is that the major contributors to health-related external costs are major power production, agriculture, road traffic, and non-industrial domestic combustion, including wood combustion. We conclude that when regulating the emissions of ammonia from the agricultural sector, both the impacts on nature and on human health should be taken into account. This study confirms that air pollution constitutes a serious problem for human health and that the related external costs are considerable. The results in this work emphasize the importance of defining the right questions in the decision-making process. The results from assessing the impacts from each emission sector depend clearly on the assumption that the other emission sectors are not changed, especially emissions changing concentrations of atmospheric OH and therefore lifetimes of other chemical species.

Description: An integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain has been developed to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors. The model system can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. In this study, we apply the EVA system to Europe, and perform a more detailed assessment of past, present, and future health-cost externalities of the total air pollution levels in Europe (including both natural and anthropogenic sources), represented by the years 2000, 2007, 2011, and 2020. We also assess the contribution to the health-related external costs from international ship traffic with special attention to the international ship traffic in the Baltic and North seas, since special regulatory actions on sulfur emissions, called SECA (sulfur emission control area), have been introduced in these areas. We conclude that, despite efficient regulatory actions in Europe in recent decades, air pollution still constitutes a serious problem for human health. Hence the related external costs are considerable. The total health-related external costs for the whole of Europe are estimated at 803 bn euros yr−1 for the year 2000, decreasing to 537 bn euros yr−1 in the year 2020. We estimate the total number of premature deaths in Europe in the year 2000 due to air pollution to be around 680 000 yr−1, decreasing to approximately 450 000 in the year 2020. The contribution from international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere was estimated to 7% of the total health-related external costs in Europe in the year 2000, increasing to 12% in the year 2020. In contrast, the contribution from international ship traffic in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea decreases 36% due to the regulatory efforts of reducing sulfur emissions from ship traffic in SECA. Introducing this regulatory instrument for all international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least in areas close to Europe, would have a significant positive impact on human health in Europe.

Description: We examine here the hypothesis that during flowering, the grass pollen concentrations at a specific site reflect the distribution of grass pollen sources within a few kilometres from this site. We perform this analysis on data from a measurement campaign in the city of Aarhus (Denmark) using three pollen traps and by comparing these observations with a novel inventory of grass pollen sources. The source inventory is based on a new methodology developed for urban scale grass pollen sources. The new methodology is believed to be generally applicable for the European area, as it relies on commonly available remote sensing data combined with management information for local grass areas. The inventory has identified a number of grass pollen source areas present within the city domain. The comparison of the measured pollen concentrations with the inventory shows that the atmospheric concentrations of grass pollen in the urban zone reflects the source areas identified in the inventory, and that these pollen sources that are found to affect the pollen levels are located near and within the city domain. The results also show that during days with peak levels of pollen concentrations, there is no correlation between the three urban traps and an operational trap located just 60 km away. This finding suggests that during intense flowering, the grass pollen concentration mirrors the local source distribution, and is thus a local scale phenomenon. Model simulations aiming at assessment of population exposure to pollen levels are therefore recommended to take into account both local sources and local atmospheric transport, and not rely only on describing regional to long-range transport of pollen. The derived pollen source inventory can be entered into local scale atmospheric transport models in combination with other components that simulates pollen release in order to calculate urban scale variations in the grass pollen load. The gridded inventory with a resolution of 14 m is therefore made available as supplementary material to this paper, and the verifying grass pollen observations are in additional available in tabular form.

Description: We have developed an integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors, which can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. Central for the system is a newly developed tagging method capable of calculating the contribution from a specific emission source or sector to the overall air pollution levels, taking into account the non-linear atmospheric chemistry. The main objective of this work is to identify the anthropogenic emission sources in Europe and Denmark that contribute the most to human health impacts using this tagging method. In this study, we applied the EVA system to Europe and Denmark, with a detailed analysis of health-related external costs from the ten major emission sectors and their relative contributions. The paper contains a thorough description of the EVA system, the main results from the assessment of the main contributors and a discussion of the most important atmospheric chemical reactions relevant for interpreting the results. The main conclusion from the analysis of the ten major emission sectors in Europe and Denmark is that the major contributors to health-related external costs are major power production, agriculture, road traffic, and non-industrial domestic combustion, including wood combustion. We conclude that when regulating the emissions of ammonia from the agricultural sector, both the impacts on nature and on human health should be taken into account. This study confirms that air pollution constitutes a serious problem to human health and that the related external costs are considerable. The results in this work emphasize the importance of defining the right questions in the decision making process, since most of the atmospheric chemical compounds are linked via non-linear chemical reactions, which are important to take into account. The results from assessing the impacts from each emission sector depend clearly on the assumption that the other emission sectors are not changed, especially emissions changing concentrations of atmospheric OH and therefore live times of other chemical species.

Description: An integrated model system, EVA (Economic Valuation of Air pollution), based on the impact-pathway chain has been developed, to assess the health-related economic externalities of air pollution resulting from specific emission sources or sectors. The model system can be used to support policy-making with respect to emission control. In this study, we apply the EVA system to Europe, and perform a more detailed assessment of past, present, and future health-cost externalities of the total air pollution levels in Europe (including both natural and anthropogenic sources), represented by the years 2000, 2007, 2011, and 2020. We also assess the contribution to the health-related external costs from international ship traffic with special attention to the international ship traffic in the Baltic and North Seas, since special regulatory actions on sulphur emissions, called SECA (sulphur emission control area), have been introduced in these areas,. We conclude that despite efficient regulatory actions in Europe in recent decades, air pollution still constitutes a serious problem to human health, hence the related external costs are considerable. The total health-related external costs for the whole of Europe is estimated at 803 bn Euro yr−1 for the year 2000, decreasing to 537 bn Euro yr−1 in the year 2020. We estimate the total number of premature deaths in Europe in the year 2000 due to air pollution to be around 680 000 yr−1, decreasing to approximately 450 000 in the year 2020. The contribution from international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere was estimated to 7% of the total health-related external costs in Europe in the year 2000, increasing to 12% in the year 2020. In contrast, the contribution from international ship traffic in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea decreases 36% due to the regulatory efforts of reducing sulphur emissions from ship traffic in SECA. Introducing this regulatory instrument for all international ship traffic in the Northern Hemisphere, or at least in areas close to Europe, would have a significant positive impact on human health in Europe.

Description: We examine here the hypothesis that during flowering, the grass pollen concentrations at a specific site reflect the distribution of grass pollen sources within a few kilometres of this site. We perform this analysis on data from a measurement campaign in the city of Aarhus (Denmark) using three pollen traps and by comparing these observations with a novel inventory of grass pollen sources. The source inventory is based on a new methodology developed for urban-scale grass pollen sources. The new methodology is believed to be generally applicable for the European area, as it relies on commonly available remote sensing data combined with management information for local grass areas. The inventory has identified a number of grass pollen source areas present within the city domain. The comparison of the measured pollen concentrations with the inventory shows that the atmospheric concentrations of grass pollen in the urban zone reflect the source areas identified in the inventory, and that the pollen sources that are found to affect the pollen levels are located near or within the city domain. The results also show that during days with peak levels of pollen concentrations there is no correlation between the three urban traps and an operational trap located just 60 km away. This finding suggests that during intense flowering, the grass pollen concentration mirrors the local source distribution and is thus a local-scale phenomenon. Model simulations aimed at assessing population exposure to pollen levels are therefore recommended to take into account both local sources and local atmospheric transport, and not to rely only on describing regional to long-range transport of pollen. The derived pollen source inventory can be entered into local-scale atmospheric transport models in combination with other components that simulate pollen release in order to calculate urban-scale variations in the grass pollen load. The gridded inventory with a resolution of 14 m is therefore made available as supplementary material to this paper, and the verifying grass pollen observations are additionally available in tabular form.