Health impact assessments of shipping and port-sourced air pollution on a global scale: A scoping literature review

Health impact assessment of port-sourced air pollution in Barcelona

INTRODUCTION

Air pollution is a major health risk factor. Ports might be an understudied source of air pollution.

METHODS

We conducted a spatial health impact assessment (HIA) of port-sourced air pollution for Barcelona for 2017 at the neighbourhood level. Total NO2 and PM10 and port-sourced NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were available through the ADMS-Urban model. Population data, mortality and morbidity data, and risk estimates were obtained. We followed standard HIA methodologies and calculated relative risks and impact fractions for 1.35 million adults living in 73 neighbourhoods.

RESULTS

The city-wide mean total NO2 and PM10 concentrations were 37.88 μg/m3 (range: 19.61-52.17 μg/m3) and 21.68 μg/m3 (range: 17.33-26.69 μg/m3), respectively, of which 7% (range: 2-36%) and 1% (range: 0-7%) were port-sourced, respectively. The mean port-sourced PM2.5 concentration was 0.19 μg/m3 (range: 0.06-1.38 μg/m3). We estimated that 1,123 (PI: 0-3,060) and 1,230 (95% CI: 0-2,566) premature deaths were attributable to total NO2 and PM10, respectively, of which 8.1% (91; PI: 0-264) and 1.1% (13; 95% CI 0-29) were attributable to port-sourced NO2 and PM10, respectively. 20 (95% CI: 15-26) premature deaths were attributable to port-sourced PM2.5. Additionally, a considerable morbidity burden and losses in life expectancy were attributable to port-sourced air pollution. Neighbourhoods closest to the port in the south-east were most adversely affected, gradually decreasing towards the north-west.

CONCLUSIONS

The port is an understudied air pollution source in Barcelona with strong health impacts. Cities need local insight into health risk factors, their sources, attributable burdens and distributions for defining targeted policies.

Environmental Justice and Systems Analysis for Air Quality Planning in the Port of Oakland in California

Many frontline communities experience adverse health impacts from living in proximity to high-polluting industrial sources. Securing environmental justice requires, in part, a comprehensive set of quantitative indicators. We incorporate environmental justice and life-cycle thinking into air quality planning to assess fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure and monetized damages from operating and maintaining the Port of Oakland, a major multimodal marine port located in the historically marginalized West Oakland community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The exposure domain for the assessment is the entire San Francisco Bay Area, a home to more than 7.5 million people. Of the more than 14 sources included in the emissions inventory, emissions from large container ships, or ocean-going vessels (OGVs), dominate the PM2.5 intake, and supply chain sources (material production and delivery, fuel production) represent between 3.5% and 7.5% of annual intake. Exposure damages, which model the costs from excess mortalities resulting from exposure from the study's emission sources, range from USD 100 to 270 million per annum. Variations in damages are due to the use of different concentration-response relationships, hazard ratios, and Port resurfacing area assumptions. Racial and income-based exposure disparities are stark. The Black population and people within the lowest income quintile are 2.2 and 1.9 times more disproportionately exposed, respectively, to the Port's pollution sources relative to the general population. Mitigation efforts focused on electrifying in-port trucking operations yield modest reductions (3.5%) compared to strategies that prioritize emission reductions from OGVs and commercial harbor craft operations (8.7-55%). Our recommendations emphasize that a systems-based approach is critical for identifying all relevant emission sources and mitigation strategies for improving equity in civil infrastructure systems.

Increase in Agricultural-Derived NHx and Decrease in Coal Combustion-Derived NOx Result in Atmospheric Particulate N-NH4+ Surpassing N-NO3- in the South China Sea

The atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic active nitrogen significantly influences marine primary productivity and contributes to eutrophication. The form of nitrogen deposition has been evolving annually, alongside changes in human activities. A disparity arises between observation results and simulation conclusions due to the limited field observation and research in the ocean. To address this gap, our study undertook three field cruises in the South China Sea in 2021, the largest marginal sea of China. The objective was to investigate the latest atmospheric particulate inorganic nitrogen deposition pattern and changes in nitrogen sources, employing nitrogen-stable isotopes of nitrate (δ15N-NO3-) and ammonia (δ15N-NH4+) linked to a mixing model. The findings reveal that the N-NH4+ deposition generally surpasses N-NO3- deposition, attributed to a decline in the level of NOx emission from coal combustion and an upswing in the level of NHx emission from agricultural sources. The disparity in deposition between N-NH4+ and N-NO3- intensifies from the coast to the offshore, establishing N-NH4+ as the primary contributor to oceanic nitrogen deposition, particularly in ocean background regions. Fertilizer (33 ± 21%) and livestock (20 ± 6%) emerge as the primary sources of N-NH4+. While coal combustion continues to be a significant contributor to marine atmospheric N-NO3-, its proportion has diminished to 22 (Northern Coast)-35% (background area) due to effective NOx emission controls by the countries surrounding the South China Sea, especially the Chinese Government. As coal combustion's contribution dwindles, the significance of vessel and marine biogenic emissions grows. The daytime higher atmospheric N-NO3- concentration and lower δ15N-NO3- compared with nighttime further underscore the substantial role of marine biogenic emissions.

Ports and their influence on local air pollution and public health: A global analysis

Despite the skyrocketing growth in recent decades of environmental studies on ports and shipping, their local health impacts remain largely under-researched. This article tackles this gap in research by statistically analyzing data on global shipping flows across nearly 5000 ports in 35 OECD countries between 2001 and 2018. The different traffic types, from containers to bulk and passengers, are analyzed jointly with data on natural conditions, air pollution, socio-economic indicators, and public health. The principal results show that port regions pollute more than non-port regions on average, while health impacts vary according to the size and specialization of the port region. Three types of port regions are clearly differentiated: industrial, intermediate, and metropolitan port regions.

Digitalization and innovation in green ports: A review of current issues, contributions and the way forward in promoting sustainable ports and maritime logistics

As a fundamental transportation mode, maritime logistics has become an indispensable component on a global scale. However, there are multiple drawbacks associated with ports operating in traditional ways, such as higher cost, lower efficiency and generating more environmental pollution. Digital technologies have been researched and implemented gradually in green ports, especially in data collection and real-time monitoring, and these advances help to promote higher work efficiency and reduce detrimental environmental impacts. It was found that green ports (e.g. ports of Raffina, Los Angeles, and Long Beach) generally perform better in energy conservation and pollutant emission reduction. However, considering the variability in the level of digitalization, there are challenges in achieving effective communications between individual ports. Therefore, to optimize and update green port practices, a systematic review is necessary to comprehensively analyze the beneficial contributions of green ports. This review adopted bibliometric analysis to examine the shipping framework focusing on green ports digitalization and innovation. After that, with regards to the bibliometric results, five aspects were analyzed, including environment, performance, policy, technology, and management. Besides, intelligent life-cycle management was systematically discussed to improve green ports and maritime logistics performance and sustainability in three aspects, namely waste discharge, shipping management system and green ports management. The findings revealed that green ports and maritime logistics require digital cooperation, transformation, and management to achieve sustainable development goals, including route selection and control of ships' numbers, weather prediction, and navigational effluent monitoring, albeit with some obstacles.

Maritime Emission Monitoring: Development and Testing of a UAV-Based Real-Time Wind Sensing Mission Planner Module

Maritime emissions contribute significantly to global pollution, necessitating accurate and efficient monitoring methods. Traditional methods for tracking ship emissions often face limitations in real-time data accuracy, with wind measurement being a critical yet challenging aspect. This paper introduces an innovative mission planner module for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that leverages onboard wind sensing capabilities to enhance maritime emission monitoring. The module's primary objective is to assist operators in making informed decisions by providing real-time wind data overlays, thus optimizing flight paths and data collection efficiency. Our experimental setup involves the testing of the module in simulated maritime environments, demonstrating its efficacy in varying wind conditions. The real-time wind data overlays provided by the module enable UAV operators to adjust their flight paths dynamically, reducing unnecessary power expenditure and mitigating the risks associated with low-battery scenarios, especially in challenging maritime conditions. This paper presents the implementation of real-time wind data overlays on an open-source state-of-the-art mission planner as a C# plugin that is seamlessly integrated into the user interface. The factors that affect performance, in terms of communication overheads and real-time operation, are identified and discussed. The operation of the module is evaluated in terms of functional integration and real-time visual representation of wind measurements, and the enhanced situational awareness that it can offer to mission controllers is demonstrated. Beyond presenting a novel application of UAV technology in environmental monitoring, we also provide an extensive discussion of how this work will be extended in the context of complete aerial environmental inspection missions and the future directions in research within the field that can potentially lead to the modernization of maritime emission monitoring practices.

Impacts of climate change on the fate of contaminants through extreme weather events

The direct impacts of climate change involve a multitude of phenomena, including rising sea levels, intensified severe weather events such as droughts and flooding, increased temperatures leading to wildfires, and unpredictable fluctuations in rainfall. This comprehensive review intends to examine firstly the probable consequences of climate change on extreme weather events such as drought, flood and wildfire. This review subsequently examines the release and transformation of contaminants in terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric environments in response to extreme weather events driven by climate change. While drought and flood influence the dynamics of inorganic and organic contaminants in terrestrial and aquatic environments, thereby influencing their mobility and transport, wildfire results in the release and spread of organic contaminants in the atmosphere. There is a nascent awareness of climate change's influence of climate change-induced extreme weather events on the dynamics of environmental contaminants in the scientific community and decision-making processes. The remediation industry, in particular, lags behind in adopting adaptive measures for managing contaminated environments affected by climate change-induced extreme weather events. However, recognizing the need for assessment measures represents a pivotal first step towards fostering more adaptive practices in the management of contaminated environments. We highlight the urgency of collaboration between environmental chemists and climate change experts, emphasizing the importance of jointly assessing the fate of contaminants and rigorous action to augment risk assessment and remediation strategies to safeguard the health of our environment.

Long-term effects of air pollutants on respiratory and cardiovascular mortality in a port city along the Adriatic sea

BACKGROUND

Shipping and port-related air pollution has a significant health impact on a global scale. The present study aimed to assess the mortality burden attributable to long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the city of Ancona (Italy), with one of the leading national commercial harbours.

METHODS

Exposure to air pollutants was derived by dispersion models. The relationship between the long-term exposure of air pollution exposure and cause-specific mortality was evaluated by Poisson regression models, after adjustment for gender, age and socioeconomic status. Results are expressed as percent change of risk (and relative 95% confidence intervals) per 5 unit increases in the exposures. The health impact on the annual number of premature cause-specific deaths was also assessed.

RESULTS

PM2.5 and NO2 annual concentrations were higher in the area close to the harbour than in the rest of the city. Positive associations between each pollutant and most of the mortality outcomes were observed, with estimates of up to 7.6% (95%CI 0.1, 15.6%) for 10 µg/m3 increase in NO2 and cardiovascular mortality and 15.3% (95%CI-1.1, 37.2%) for 10 µg/m3 increase PM2.5 and lung cancer. In the subpopulation living close to the harbour, there were excess risks of up to 13.5%, 24.1% and 37.9% for natural, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. The number of annual premature deaths due to the excess of PM2.5 and NO2 exposure (having as a reference the 2021 World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines) was 82 and 25, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study confirms the long-term health effects of PM and NO2 on mortality and reveals a higher mortality burden in areas close to shipping and port-related emissions. Estimating the source-specific health burdens is key to achieve a deeper understanding of the role of different emission sources, as well as to support effective and targeted mitigation strategies.

Discovering new pathways toward integration between health and sustainable development goals with natural language processing and network science

BACKGROUND

Research on health and sustainable development is growing at a pace such that conventional literature review methods appear increasingly unable to synthesize all relevant evidence. This paper employs a novel combination of natural language processing (NLP) and network science techniques to address this problem and to answer two questions: (1) how is health thematically interconnected with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in global science? (2) What specific themes have emerged in research at the intersection between SDG 3 ("Good health and well-being") and other sustainability goals?

METHODS

After a descriptive analysis of the integration between SDGs in twenty years of global science (2001-2020) as indexed by dimensions.ai, we analyze abstracts of articles that are simultaneously relevant to SDG 3 and at least one other SDG (N = 27,928). We use the top2vec algorithm to discover topics in this corpus and measure semantic closeness between these topics. We then use network science methods to describe the network of substantive relationships between the topics and identify 'zipper themes', actionable domains of research and policy to co-advance health and other sustainability goals simultaneously.

RESULTS

We observe a clear increase in scientific research integrating SDG 3 and other SDGs since 2001, both in absolute and relative terms, especially on topics relevant to interconnections between health and SDGs 2 ("Zero hunger"), 4 ("Quality education"), and 11 ("Sustainable cities and communities"). We distill a network of 197 topics from literature on health and sustainable development, with 19 distinct network communities - areas of growing integration with potential to further bridge health and sustainability science and policy. Literature focused explicitly on the SDGs is highly central in this network, while topical overlaps between SDG 3 and the environmental SDGs (12-15) are under-developed.

CONCLUSION

Our analysis demonstrates the feasibility and promise of NLP and network science for synthesizing large amounts of health-related scientific literature and for suggesting novel research and policy domains to co-advance multiple SDGs. Many of the 'zipper themes' identified by our method resonate with the One Health perspective that human, animal, and plant health are closely interdependent. This and similar perspectives will help meet the challenge of 'rewiring' sustainability research to co-advance goals in health and sustainability.