Assessing the Human Health Benefits of Climate Mitigation, Pollution Prevention, and Biodiversity Preservation

Background

Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has amassed great wealth and achieved unprecedented material prosperity. These advances have come, however, at great cost to the planet. They are guided by an economic model that focuses almost exclusively on short-term gain, while ignoring natural capital and human capital. They have relied on the combustion of vast quantities of fossil fuels, massive consumption of the earth's resources, and production and environmental release of enormous quantities of chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, and plastics. They have caused climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, the "Triple Planetary Crisis". They are responsible for more than 9 million premature deaths per year and for widespread disease - impacts that fall disproportionately upon the poor and the vulnerable.

Goals

To map the human health impacts of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. To outline a framework for assessing the health benefits of interventions against these threats.

Findings

Actions taken by national governments and international agencies to mitigate climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss can improve health, prevent disease, save lives, and enhance human well-being. Yet assessment of health benefits is largely absent from evaluations of environmental remediation programs. This represents a lost opportunity to quantify the full benefits of environmental remediation and to educate policy makers and the public.

Recommendations

We recommend that national governments and international agencies implementing interventions against climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss develop metrics and strategies for quantifying the health benefits of these interventions. We recommend that they deploy these tools in parallel with assessments of ecologic and economic benefits. Health metrics developed by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study may provide a useful starting point.Incorporation of health metrics into assessments of environmental restoration will require building transdisciplinary collaborations. Environmental scientists and engineers will need to work with health scientists to establish evaluation systems that link environmental and economic data with health data. Such systems will assist international agencies as well as national and local governments in prioritizing environmental interventions.

Trace Metals in Global Air: First Results from the GAPS and GAPS Megacities Networks

Trace metals, as constituents of ambient air, can have impacts on human and environmental health. The Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) and GAPS Megacities (GAPS-MC) networks investigated trace metals in the air at 51 global locations by deploying polyurethane foam disk passive air samplers (PUF-PAS) for periods of 3-12 months. Aluminum and iron exhibited the highest concentrations in air (x̅ = 3400 and 4630 ng/m3, respectively), with notably elevated values at a rural site in Argentina thought to be impacted by resuspended soil. Urban sites had the highest levels of toxic Pb and Cd, with enrichment factors suggesting primarily anthropogenic influences. High levels of As at rural sites were also observed. Elevated trace metal concentrations in cities are associated with local emissions and higher PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations. Brake and tire wear-associated metals Sb, Cu, and Zn are significantly correlated and elevated at urban locations relative to those at background sites. These data demonstrate the versatility of PUF-PAS for measuring trace metals and other particle-associated pollutants in ambient air in a cost-effective and simple manner. The data presented here will serve as a global baseline for assessing future changes in ambient air associated with industrialization, urbanization, and population growth.

Impacts of Proximity to Primary Source Areas on Concentrations of POPs at Global Sampling Stations Estimated from Land Cover Information

Given the considerable financial and logistical resources supporting long-term monitoring for air pollutants, and the use of these data for performance evaluation of mitigation measures, it is important to account for contributions from primary versus secondary sources. We demonstrate a simple approach for using open source Global land cover raster data from the National Mapping Organization from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan to assess local source inputs for air measurements of legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs)-polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides-reported under the Global atmospheric passive sampling (GAPS) Network at 119 locations for the time period 2005-2014. The land cover composition within a 10 km radius around the GAPS sites was identified to create source impact indicator (SII) vectors to quantify and rank the remoteness of the sites from human infrastructure. Using principal component analysis, three SII vectors were established to rank sites by impact of (i) general infrastructure/remoteness, (ii) urban infrastructure, and (iii) agricultural infrastructure. General infrastructure describes the combined effects of settlements and agricultural infrastructure. We found significant correlations (p < 0.05) between POP concentrations in air and specific SIIs. PCB levels in air had a statistically significant correlation to the SII ranking urban impacts around the sampling sites, while Endosulfan I, Endosulfan II, and Endosulfan sulfate had a statistically significant correlation with SII ranking agricultural impacts. The complete GAPS data set from 2004-2014 (1040 samples at 119 locations) was standardized based on the SII rankings to assess the global temporal trends of legacy POPs. SIIs were incorporated in the multiple regression analysis to determine global halving times. This includes short-term monitoring data from 79 locations that were previously excluded. Furthermore, the SII approach allows the integration of global monitoring data from different studies for broader global temporal trend analysis. This ability to link the results of independent and small-scale studies can enhance temporal trend analysis in support of the larger scale initiatives, such as inter alia, the Global Monitoring Plan and Effectiveness Evaluation of the Stockholm Convention in the case of POPs. This simple approach using open source data has a broad potential for application for other classes of air pollutants.

Coal seam gas industry methane emissions in the Surat Basin, Australia: comparing airborne measurements with inventories

Coal seam gas (CSG) accounts for about one-quarter of natural gas production in Australia and rapidly increasing amounts globally. This is the first study worldwide using airborne measurement techniques to quantify methane (CH4) emissions from a producing CSG field: the Surat Basin, Queensland, Australia. Spatially resolved CH4 emissions were quantified from all major sources based on top-down (TD) and bottom-up (BU) approaches, the latter using Australia's UNFCCC reporting workflow. Based on our TD-validated BU inventory, CSG sources emit about 0.4% of the produced gas, comparable to onshore dry gas fields in the USA and The Netherlands, but substantially smaller than in other onshore regions, especially those where oil is co-produced (wet gas). The CSG CH4 emission per unit of gas production determined in this study is two to three times higher than existing inventories for the region. Our results indicate that the BU emission factors for feedlots and grazing cattle need review, possibly requiring an increase for Queensland's conditions. In some subregions, the BU estimate for gathering and boosting stations is potentially too high. The results from our iterative BU inventory process, which feeds into TD data, illustrate how global characterization of CH4 emissions could be improved by incorporating empirical TD verification surveys into national reporting. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Rising methane: is warming feeding warming? (part 1)'.