Air Quality
Air quality refers to the condition of the air in terms of the presence of pollutants and other harmful substances. It is measured by factors such as the concentration of particulate matter, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Poor air quality can have detrimental effects on human health, ecosystems, and the environment.
7 Key excerpts on "Air Quality"
eBook - ePub- Wayne T. Davis, Joshua S. Fu, Thad Godish(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...7 Air Quality and Emissions Assessment The quality of air in our communities, countryside, and even remote locations changes from hour to hour, day to day, and over longer timescales. Concentrations of pollutants depend on the magnitude of emissions from individual sources, source emission density, topography, and state of the atmosphere. Air Quality can be defined qualitatively. It is poor when pollutants (1) cause a reduction in visibility, (2) soil building surfaces and damage materials, (3) damage crops and other plants, or (4) cause adverse health effects. It is deemed good when the sky appears clean and no adverse environmental effects are evident. Qualitative assessments of Air Quality, although indicative of the nature of the atmosphere relative to pollution concerns, cannot be used to support regulatory programs designed to protect the environment. Air Quality must therefore be characterized quantitatively. As such, it is defined in the context of concentrations of specific target pollutants and observed environmental and public health effects. Protection of human health and the environment from adverse effects of pollutants is the primary goal of all air pollution control programs. Protection and enhancement of Air Quality require that good data on ambient concentrations of major pollutants and emissions from individual sources and groups of sources be available to regulatory authorities. Systematic efforts to monitor ambient pollutant concentrations both temporally and spatially, as well as to characterize and quantify emissions, are vital to the success of all Air Quality protection and pollution control programs. These efforts include ambient Air Quality monitoring, source emissions assessment, and modeling. 7.1 Air Quality Monitoring Pollutant levels in North America are assessed using systematically conducted, long-term ambient Air Quality monitoring efforts...
eBook - ePubAir Pollution and Climate Change
The Basics
- John K. Pearson, Richard Derwent(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...5 Regional Air Quality DOI: 10.4324/9781003293132-5 All the best science in the world, without translation into policy, really is of no practical value in the world of tomorrow. – Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, October 2010–October 2017 Overview In this chapter, we explore how concerns about regional Air Quality began with the discovery of the effects of acid rain, where environmental damage in one country was due to air pollution transported from other countries. These concerns led to the development of regional Air Quality models. The important regional air pollutant, ozone, is then examined and how its reduction is necessary to improve urban and regional Air Quality and ease the build-up of global warming. Emissions inventories are examined and how they can be used to assist environmental bodies and governments by providing input data for Air Quality models and formulate policies to improve future Air Quality. The role of Air Quality legislation is explored and how international bodies can work together to reduce regional air pollution. The environmental issues that come under the heading of regional air pollution include acid rain, ground-level ozone and fine particle formation, eutrophication of sensitive ecosystems and the loss of biological diversity, and the long-range transport of heavy metals (HMs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Each of these issues involves environmental impacts at often large distances, perhaps over hundreds to several thousand kilometres, downwind of major sources of pollutants. Because of the huge distances involved, travel times may be days to weeks. Inevitably, important pollutant emission sources may be in one country, state or jurisdiction and the environmental impacts in another. In many cases, the benefits of environmental improvement may be realised in one country whereas the costs of pollution controls are borne in another. We begin with the acid rain problem...
eBook - ePubReducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality
Two Interrelated Global Challenges
- Larry E. Erickson, Gary Brase(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...3 Urban Air Quality With contributions from Ronaldo G. Maghirang Abstract Air Quality is a major environmental issue, with ambient Air Quality in large cities and indoor Air Quality (where solid fuels are a source of energy) being two aspects of Air Quality that have major significance. The social cost of illness and early mortality from poor Air Quality exceeds $4 trillion per year. A particular risk is particulates in the air smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) that impact health by entering the lungs and finding their way into locations where they have health effects. Nitrogen oxides, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds in ambient air also have health impacts. Efforts to improve Air Quality by reducing the amount of electricity generated from the combustion of fossil fuels and by electrifying transportation are in progress in many parts of the world. Household air pollution can be reduced by cooking and heating with gas or electricity rather than solid fuels. Improving Air Quality is a high priority in many locations and there is a need to continue to take significant and decisive actions on this front. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 will be beneficial to communities that are working to improve Air Quality. 3.1 Introduction Air Quality in cities has impacted human health and quality of life for about as long as cities have existed, along with the combustion processes used for cooking, heating, and industry. Air pollution in cities is a global concern, with welfare costs that exceed $4 trillion per year (Erickson et al., 2017; UNICEF, 2016). Two important sources of air pollution are emissions from transportation and open burning. Combustion of solid fuels used for cooking contributes significantly to household air pollution and urban Air Quality...
eBook - ePubUrban Sprawl and Public Health
Designing, Planning, and Building for Healthy Communities
- Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank, Richard J. Jackson(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Island Press(Publisher)
...These emissions largely determine Air Quality over urban areas. The emission patterns, and the Air Quality that results, can vary on a daily basis with changes in weather. Ozone, for example, forms in the atmosphere when oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) interact in the presence of heat and sunlight, so ozone is usually at its worst in summer months. For mobile sources, emission patterns vary with vehicles, trip characteristics, fuel types, and other factors. Characteristics of the community—the ages of its residents, their incomes, their family structures—also affect the amount of driving. All other factors being equal, for instance, higher income usually predicts higher vehicle ownership rates and more driving. This directly increases mobile source emissions, but there are indirect effects as well. Higher incomes are generally associated with larger houses and lots, meaning that wealthier people tend to live in neighborhoods that require more frequent and longer driving trips. Finally, Air Quality has a direct influence on health, contributing to mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and perhaps even birth defects. The fact that poor Air Quality threatens health has, of course, long been recognized; this understanding was the basis of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970 and subsequent amendments, and continues to play a central role in determining clean air standards. Yet despite the long-standing recognition that Air Quality and health are linked, health research continues to uncover new relationships between the two. This research has led the U.S...
eBook - ePubSolar Powered Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles
A Sustainable Development
- Larry E. Erickson, Jessica Robinson, Gary Brase, Jackson Cutsor, Larry E. Erickson, Jessica Robinson, Gary Brase, Jackson Cutsor(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...These pollutants have effects ranging from health impacts, particularly those of sensitive groups, to decreased visibility, to damage to animals, crops, vegetation, and buildings. The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines are also shown in Table 8.1. TABLE 8.1 Air Quality WHO Guidelines and U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standards a Pollutant NO 2 (ppm) SO 2 (ppb) Ozone (ppb) PM 2.5 (μg/m 3) WHO 0.021 (annual mean) 7.6 (24-hour mean) 51 (8-hour mean) 10 (annual mean) 0.106 (1-hour mean) 191 (10-min mean) 25 (24-hour mean) NAAQS 0.10 (1-hour mean) 75 (1-hour mean) 70 (8-hour mean) 12 (annual mean) 35 (24-hour mean) Source: WHO. 2015a. Ambient (Outdoor) Air Quality and Health, Fact Sheet No. 313; http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/ ; USEPA. 2015c. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS); http://www3.epa.gov/ttn/naaqs/criteria.html ; USEPA. 2015d. National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone; http://wwws.epa.gov/airquality/ozonepollution/actions.html. a There are NAAQS for carbon monoxide, lead, and PM 10 in addition to the values shown here. Air pollution is a significant problem in urban areas, where population density is greater and the number of diesel-powered vehicles and poor enforcement of standards are major contributors to air pollution and health problems. Especially concerning is the situation in developing countries, where standards concerning vehicle emissions, fuel quality, and reduction technologies are lax or poorly enforced. This lack of enforcement in developing countries may be due to education, lack of resources, or the lack of political power to enforce existing regulations (Apte et al., 2015). By decreasing air pollution levels, countries can reduce the burdens of multiple diseases, including strokes, heart disease, lung cancers, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma...
eBook - ePubAir Pollution
Measurement, Modelling and Mitigation, Fourth Edition
- Abhishek Tiwary, Ian Williams(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...Chapter 1 Overview of air pollution 1.1 WHAT IS AIR POLLUTION? Our Earth is uniquely gifted with an envelope of chemicals that enables life-supporting activities – commonly known as air. At least 3000 different chemicals have been identified in air samples. However, it can safely be assumed that the sum total of these chemicals is at least equal to those that have been originally produced on the Earth, plus additional ones formed by their subsequent reactions. Air pollution is defined as ‘the presence of substances in the atmosphere that can cause adverse effects to man and the environment’. It is a term used to describe any unwanted chemicals or other materials that contaminate the air we breathe, resulting in the reduction of its life-supporting qualities (commonly referred to as Air Quality). In principle, an air pollutant is any chemical species that exceeds the concentrations or characteristics of the natural constituents of air (discussed in Section 1.5.2). However, strictly speaking, a pollutant is defined as a substance that is potentially harmful to the health or well-being of human, animal or plant life, or to the ecological systems. Pollution (in the general sense) was defined in the Tenth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution as: The introduction by man into the environment of substances or energy liable to cause hazard to human health, harm to living resources and ecological systems, damage to structure or amenity or interference with legitimate use of the environment. This is a very broad definition that includes many types of pollution that we shall not cover in this book, yet it contains some important ideas. Note that by this definition, chemicals such as sulphur dioxide from volcanoes or methane from the decay of natural vegetation are not counted as pollution, but sulphur dioxide from coal-burning or methane from rice-growing are pollution...
eBook - ePubUrban Air Pollution in Asian Cities
Status, Challenges and Management
- Dieter Schwela, Gary Haq, Cornie Huizenga, Wha-Jin Han, Herbert Fabian, May Ajero.(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The effectiveness of an AQM strategy is dependent on the implementation of a number of measures. These include comprehensive legislation, emission inventories, Air Quality monitoring, dispersion modelling, exposure and damage assessments and emission standards. However, legislative powers and resources to implement and enforce air pollution regulation and the availability of a range of cost-effective pollution control measures are vital to improving Air Quality. Some form of Air Quality monitoring is undertaken in the majority of Asian cities. However, the extent of monitoring, the types of pollutants monitored and the reliability of data collated vary widely between cities and countries in the region often reflecting the level of economic development. At present monitoring in peri-urban and rural areas is rarely undertaken. Yet this is essential in order to understand the potential impacts on agriculture and ecosystems and the contribution of long-range pollution to urban air pollution. Air Quality standards are another important aspect of AQM. In areas where Air Quality standards are exceeded on a regular basis, measures need to be taken to reduce air pollution levels. National Air Quality standards, however, are often based on a number of constraints such as economic and technological feasibility, which do not guarantee that they are protecting human health and the environment. The WHO Air Quality guidelines (WHO, 2000; 2005) are derived from epidemiological and toxicological studies in such a way as to minimize the risk of health and environmental impacts. For PM, SO 2 and O 3, however, it has been generally accepted that existing studies provide no indication of any reliable threshold of effect. National and local government authorities in Asia have adopted a range of Air Quality standards either based on WHO guidelines or USEPA standards. These have tended to differ from country to country (see Tables 4.1 – 4.6)...
