UK air pollution regulations will reduce deaths, but do little to protect ecosystems
Existing air pollution regulations will reduce thousands of premature adult deaths in the UK, but even the most effective technically feasible actions, which will save thousands more lives, will do little to protect the country’s sensitive ecosystems, find UCL researchers.
The new research, published in GeoHealth, found that existing air pollution regulations could avoid 6,751 early deaths amongst adults in the UK by 2030 compared to if no regulations existed. That estimate nearly doubles to 13,269 avoided adult premature deaths if all possible technically feasible measures are employed to reduce air pollution immediately.
However, existing regulations don’t cover most of the pollution emitted by the UK’s agriculture sector, whose emissions are predicted to rise in the coming years. The study found also that even if all technological measures are put in place, above what is required by UK law, it won’t reduce the harmful effects of air pollution on the country’s sensitive ecosystems.
Lead author Dr Eloise Marais (UCL Geography) said: “Our study demonstrates that existing legislation and regulations already have a sizeable benefit on health, but more ambitious adoption of readily available measures, especially for livestock farming and fertiliser use, could benefit thousands more.
“Currently the UK government only provides a handbook of suggested farming practices to limit ammonia emissions. Many of these are the same measures we test in our study. We hope our results provide the incentives needed to regulate rather than suggest.”
Human Health
Air pollution is harmful to human health and damages the environment. The researchers estimated that 48,625 adults die prematurely each year in the UK due to particulate matter pollution. Presently, 79% of the UK exceeds the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual mean guideline for safe fine particulate matter levels.
The researchers looked at a range of pollutants and their effects on people and the environment, and calculated their projected effects in the coming decade based on present levels of regulation. They then went further and estimated what the maximum possible benefit could be if all technically feasible technologies were implemented.
They found that the amount of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, the air pollutant most harmful to human health, can be significantly reduced. Existing legislation targets the emission products of many sources, including shipping, aviation, road and rail transportation, power plants and industry. With existing regulations, the extent of the UK that exceeds the WHO guideline is expected to decline from 79% currently to 58% by 2030, but could drop to as low as 36% if all technically feasible measures were put in place.
These additional measures include low emission manure spreading methods, air filters on animal housing, alternatives to urea-based fertiliser, further desulfurising fuels, more effective air filters in industrial and power plant stacks, more efficient home stoves and boilers, and stricter auto emission standards.
However, ammonia emissions, which account for about a third of overall UK particulate matter pollution, mostly originate from agriculture which is largely unregulated. These emissions would slightly increase under current regulations and will only moderately decrease with adoption of readily available measures. Given this, the authors also explored the effects of NH3 pollution on sensitive habitats in the UK.
Environmental Impacts
Air pollution damages the sensitive environments that make up the majority of UK national parks and other protected areas, but this ecosystem harm is more difficult to mitigate.
Agricultural ammonia is an especially important issue for sensitive natural habitats because it dumps excess nitrogen into ecosystems that thrive on low amounts of nitrogen, shifting the makeup of the ecosystem. Ammonia is also directly toxic to many lichens and mosses, which are important for peat formation, flood regulation and as the basis of natural food chains. Already, an estimated 95% of the land area covered by sensitive habitats—nearly all land in the UK that isn’t urban or used for intensive farming—is exposed to excess atmospheric nitrogen pollution.
Agriculture accounts for about 90% of anthropogenic ammonia emissions. With few regulations in the UK designed to reduce ammonia emissions, the research finds that due to agricultural intensification to produce more food by 2030, ammonia emission levels could increase slightly by about 2%. However, even if all technically feasible methods were put into place, ammonia emissions will only diminish by a modest 19%, a fraction of the estimated 80% reduction in overall nitrogen-based emissions needed to significantly reduce harm to sensitive habitats.
Dr Ed Rowe, study co-author at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: “Nearly all of this country’s sensitive ecosystems are already at risk from atmospheric nitrogen pollution, and this has led to local extinctions of many species. Our research highlights the ongoing threats facing the nation’s heaths, montane landscapes, bogs and Scots pine woodlands, even under the most optimistic projections.”
To generate their results, the researchers combined emission projections, high-resolution data sets, and contemporary exposure-risk relationships with GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry model simulations of current and future air pollution and its effects on human health and the environment.
This research was supported by the European Research Council.
Notes to Editors
For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact Michael Lucibella, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)75 3941 0389, E: m.lucibella@ucl.ac.uk
Eloise A. Marais, Jamie M. Kelly, Karn Vohra, Yifan Li, Gongda Lu, Naila Hina, Ed C. Rowe, ‘Impact of legislated and best available emission control measures on UK particulate matter pollution, premature mortality, and nitrogen-sensitive habitats’ will be published in GeoHealth on Wednesday 25 October 2023, 14:00 UK time and is under a strict embargo until this time.
The DOI for this paper will be https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GH000910.
Additional material
Tableau dashboard of administrative area PM2.5 and premature mortality estimates prepared by co-author Karn Vohra (UCL Geography).
Dr Eloise Marais's academic profile
Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
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JOURNAL
GeoHealth
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
Impact of legislated and best available emission control measures on UK particulate matter pollution, premature mortality, and nitrogen-sensitive habitats
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
25-Oct-2023
Proximity to traffic linked to increased dementia risk and brain structural changes, study finds
Living near major roadways correlates with a higher incidence of dementia and alterations in brain structure, largely due to traffic-related air pollution, according to a groundbreaking study conducted in China and the UK.
The research, recently published in Health Data Science, a Science Partner Journal, sheds new light on the public health implications of traffic-related pollution and dementia, a growing concern worldwide.
"Prior research has hinted at the neurological risks associated with living near major roads, but the underlying mechanisms remained unclear," said Fanfan Zheng, lead author and professor at the School of Nursing, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. "Our study delves into the relationship between residential proximity to major roads and dementia risk, zeroing in on the role of traffic-related pollutants."
Boasting a robust design, the study analyzed data from 460,901 participants over a median follow-up of 12.8 years. Dementia cases were sourced from the UK Biobank and verified, offering a more reliable dataset than patient-reported diagnoses. The study also stratified cases by type of dementia, allowing for a comprehensive analysis.
As an extension of the UK Biobank study, brain MRI scans were conducted, revealing changes in brain structures related to Alzheimer's disease at the pre-symptomatic stage. The study also controlled for genetic risks and other significant dementia factors.
"Our findings establish a consistent link between living close to heavy traffic and elevated dementia risk, with traffic-related air pollution, particularly nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5, being the primary drivers," commented Wuxiang Xie, associate professor at Peking University Clinical Research Institute, Peking University First Hospital. "This suggests that mitigating air pollution could be a viable strategy to reduce the dementia risk associated with traffic exposure."
Interestingly, the study found no association between long-term traffic noise pollution and dementia, contrary to previous research.
Moreover, the study discovered that proximity to traffic was consistently linked to smaller volumes in brain structures associated with Alzheimer's disease.
"Future studies should focus on validating the impact of reducing traffic-related pollution on dementia biomarkers and incidence," said Chenglong Li, the study's first author. "Our ultimate goal is to prevent a significant number of dementia cases at the pre-symptomatic stage by eliminating exposure to heavy traffic and its resultant pollutants.
JOURNAL
Health Data Science
ARTICLE TITLE
Relationships of Residential Distance to Major Traffic Roads with Dementia Incidence and Brain Structure Measures: Mediation Role of Air Pollution
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