The effects of air pollution on health have been generating attention for years. A large number of pulmonologists have recently expressed concerns about this in an open letter to Dutch Members of Parliament. Air pollution arises mainly in all kinds of combustion processes; in addition, atmospheric chemical reactions play a role in the formation of ozone and particulate matter. Health effects are both acute (increase in daily mortality and morbidity after days with increased concentrations of air pollution) as well as chronic (shortened life span and increased incidence of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in areas with elevated concentrations of air pollution). These effects already occur at concentrations that are clearly lower than those currently observed in the Netherlands.

Air pollution and health

Commuting by car, public transport, and bike: Exposure assessment and estimation of the inhaled dose of multiple airborne pollutants

An ecomuseum is an ‘instrument’ to share the interests of a region and protect its cultural, historical and natural heritage. Cycle tourism is a sustainable type of tourism. Civic crowdfunding is a method of raising funds from a community for the fulfilment of civic initiatives. Starting from the literature on the link between cycle tourism and sustainability, the interaction between renewable energy resources and tourism, and finally the place-based dimension of a civic crowdfunding campaign, the purpose of this study is to show that an ecomuseum focused on clean energy has the potential to attract cycle tourists, increase the numbers of funders, as well as attract the interest of the municipality, not-for-profit associations and energy and tourism firms, and thus significantly enhance its beneficial effects on sustainability from economic, social and environmental points of view. This study employed an action research method to gain in-depth knowledge of this issue, as well as a qualitative case study approach to present and discuss the results. The principal result of this study is the identification of a potential way to create sustainability, via the match between an ecomuseum devoted to clean energy, cycle tourism and civic crowdfunding.

Ecomuseums (on Clean Energy), Cycle Tourism and Civic Crowdfunding: A New Match for Sustainability?

Globally, cities are growing at an unprecedented pace, putting pressure on space, existing infrastructure, and resources.[...]

https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/1/14/pdf

Towards the Integrated Study of Urban Climate, Air Pollution, and Public Health

Air quality in Europe continues to remain poor in many areas, with regulation limits often exceeded by many countries. The EU Life-IP PREPAIR Project, involving administrations and environmental protection agencies of eight regions and three municipalities in Northern Italy and Slovenia, was designed to support the implementation of the regional air quality plans in the Po Valley, one of the most critical areas in Europe in terms of pollution levels. In this study, four air quality modelling systems, based on three chemical transport models (CHIMERE, FARM and CAMx) were applied over the Po Valley to assess the sensitivity of PM2.5 concentrations to NOx and NH3 emission reductions. These two precursors were reduced (individually and simultaneously) from 25% up to 75% for a total of 10 scenarios, aimed at identifying the most efficient emission reduction strategies and to assess the non-linear response of PM2.5 concentrations to precursor changes. The multi-model analysis shows that reductions across multiple emission sectors are necessary to achieve optimal results. In addition, the analysis of non-linearities revealed that during the cold season, the efficiency of PM2.5 abatement tends to increase by increasing the emission reductions, while during summertime, the same efficiency remains almost constant, or slightly decreases towards higher reduction strengths. Since the concentrations of PM2.5 are greater in winter than in summer, it is reasonable to infer that significant emission reductions should be planned to maximise reduction effectiveness.

/pdf/impact-of-nox-and-nh3-emission-reduction-on-particulate-2hqc9yhq.pdf

Impact of NOx and NH3 Emission Reduction on Particulate Matter across Po Valley: A LIFE-IP-PREPAIR Study

The positive health effects of systematic cycling are weighted against the negative effects due to higher pollutant inhalation in the actual case of the city of Milan in northern Italy. The paper first evaluates the actual use of bikes in the city, and then considers why and how much such an active mobility style can be expanded. Two models are used to compare the outcome of cycling on the specific population sample with the equivalent path travelled by car. The first model computes the long term effects of the physical activity, and the second evaluates the exacerbation of some relevant diseases due to the exposure to high levels of pollutants, in the case at hand, mainly particulate matter with diameter smaller than 10 μm (PM10). According to these two models, the overall balance for public health is always in favour of systematic biking. Even the current level of biking, low in comparison to other European cities, allows a considerable economic advantage on the order of tens of millions euros per year. This may increase to hundreds of millions if the biking level of more bike-friendly cities is reached. Despite being much less relevant from the economic viewpoint, the study also estimates the reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions corresponding to the assumed biking levels.

/pdf/assessing-the-value-of-systematic-cycling-in-a-polluted-3qwqsm3gvp.pdf

Assessing the Value of Systematic Cycling in a Polluted Urban Environment

PM2.5 wintertime sensitivity to changes in NOx, SO2, and NH3 emissions in Lombardy Region

This paper illustrates the study carried out by ARPA Lombardia to quantify the variation in daily emissions of the main pollutants and their impacts on air quality in Lombardy during the anti-COVID-19 lockdown between the end of February and the end of May 2020. A methodology for emission estimates was developed over Lombardy for this purpose and later was extended to larger areas: the Po-basin, (LIFE PREPAIR 2020) and the entire Italy (PULVIRUS 2021). In this study, the daily emissions estimates were derived by combining data from air emission inventory of Lombardy and a set of indicators that allowed to update the estimates and describe the temporal and spatial variations of the emission sources. The calculation of emission variation was conducted for all the main pollutants (PM10, NH3, NOx, SO2, NMVOC) and the greenhouse gases; then, the impact on air quality concentrations was simulated by the chemical and transport model FARM, that also allows to track secondary particulate and its variability in time and space on the basis of nonlinear processes and weather conditions. The estimated emission reduction, compared to the expected average value in the absence of anti-COVID-19 measures, daily varies depending on pollutants and is mainly affected by reductions in road traffic emissions and an estimated increase in domestic heating emissions. Simulations confirm strong reductions of NO2 atmospheric average concentrations, slightly variations of PM10 averages and a potential growth of tropospheric ozone. 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11869-022-01265-1.pdf

Emission estimates and air quality simulation on Lombardy during lockdown

This paper presents the focus on emission estimates in the Italian Regions of the Po-basin obtained by the development of a common air pollutant emission dataset on the Po-basin and Slovenia foreseen in the project LIFE PREPAIR (https://www.lifeprepair.eu/). The objective is to update emission inventories developed by the environmental protection agencies and regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Valle d’Aosta, the province of Bolzano (participating as stakeholder) and the province of Trento. A data flux is defined considering the activities on emission estimates by the different administrations according to the current Italian legislation. This activity has allowed the completion of two different datasets on the area for 2013 and 2017. The estimates of primary emissions of the main atmospheric pollutants have a high spatial resolution defined at the municipal level. The non-industrial combustion of biomass in small domestic appliances is the main source of primary PM10 in the Po-basin. NOx primary emissions are determined for quite of a half by road transport. Manure management and fertilization in the agriculture sector are the sources of NH3. The ensemble of the collected data shows a very good comparability even if all local compilers perform independently the estimates, thanks to a good alignment in using reference methodologies and to projects of common methodological development, as reported by the INEMAR project (https://www.inemar.eu/). The estimates of PM10, NOx and NH3 are comparable with data reported by the European Environment Agency EEA for the European Member States EU-28 (until 1 February 2020) and for Italy, reported under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution and European Union National Emission Ceiling Directive. 

Atmospheric Emission Sources in the Po-Basin from the LIFE-IP PREPAIR Project

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