Monitoring Air Pollution Variability during Disasters

Atmosphere

Earthea Nance¹ 

[1] Department of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX 77004, USA;

关键词: air pollution;    particulate matter;    mobile monitoring;    short-term exposure;    mortality;    Gulf oil spill;   

DOI  :  10.3390/atmos12040420

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

National environmental regulations lack short-term standards for variability in fine particulate matter (PM_2.5); they depend solely on concentration-based standards. Twenty-five years of research has linked short-term PM_2.5, that is, increases of at least 10 μg/m³ that can occur in-between regulatory readings, to increased mortality. Even as new technologies have emerged that could readily monitor short-term PM_2.5, such as real-time monitoring and mobile monitoring, their primary application has been for research, not for air quality management. The Gulf oil spill offers a strategic setting in which regulatory monitoring, computer modeling, and stationary monitoring could be directly compared to mobile monitoring. Mobile monitoring was found to best capture the variability of PM_2.5 during the disaster. The research also found that each short-term increase (≥10 μg/m³) in fine particulate matter was associated with a statistically significant increase of 0.105 deaths (p < 0.001) in people aged 65 and over, which represents a 0.32% increase. This research contributes to understanding the effects of PM_2.5 on mortality during a disaster and provides justification for environmental managers to monitor PM_2.5 variability, not only hourly averages of PM_2.5 concentration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown