Elsevier

Science of The Total Environment

Volume 643, 1 December 2018, Pages 1041-1053
Science of The Total Environment

Air pollution: A public health approach for Portugal

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.06.281Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Lisbon and surroundings are the most critical areas of pollutant emissions.

  • All regions shown improvements in SO2 concentrations.

  • Northern and Southern Portuguese regions shown increasing concentration levels of NO2 and PM2.5.

  • Respiratory and cardiovascular mortality had more impact on North, Center and Lisbon regions.

Abstract

At the global level, several epidemiological studies have conclusively pointed out the associations between short-term exposure to air pollution and acute health effects, and long-term exposure with adverse health effects such as premature mortality from severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. This study intended to characterize exposures and their adverse health effects. Three independent sets of vectors were analyzed on a nationwide level and annual basis: air pollutant emissions, ambient air concentrations and health indicators of the period 2009 to 2015. The emissions analysis, for the studied pollutants, pointed out the main findings: (i) Lisbon Metropolitan Area presents the most problematic region with regard to the emissions of all the pollutants under study; (ii) the regions of the Alentejo and Algarve showed reduced emissions of the studied pollutants compared to other parts of the country; (iii) Northern regions PM10 concentrations decreased during the two years in analysis.

Regarding the analysis of air quality, it was concluded that: (i) regarding ozone, concentration shown a decreasing trend throughout the country; (ii) nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, concentrations demonstrated an increasing trend in most of the northern part of the country; (iii) the regions of Alentejo and Lisbon Metropolitan Area showed increasing trends for sulfur dioxide and fine particles for the evaluated period. Decreasing trends in mortality associated with cardiovascular and respiratory causes are found mainly in the Alentejo and Algarve regions. In comparison, the North, Central regions, as well as, Lisbon Metropolitan Area exhibited higher mortality values related to this health indicators.

Section snippets

Background

The relationship between the increased risk of mortality and global morbidity and exposure to air pollutants has led to the development of mitigating strategies for emissions reduction of atmospheric pollutants (Song et al., 2017). Air pollution is associated with problems in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems and other adverse side effects (Le Boennec and Salladarré, 2017; Kim et al., 2017). As harmful consequences of exposure to pollutants, being the younger and older population

Study design

The selection criteria regarding geographic scales and time intervals considered the most recent available information in Portugal.

Emission outlook

The analysis of annual emission trends for the period 2009–2015 is presented in Fig. 1 for the reported pollutants: CO, NO2, SOx, NMVOC, NH3, PM10 and PM2.5 (APA, 2017).

Regarding CO, NO2, SOx, and PM10 the emission trends show an overall decrease for the analyzed period, with a tendency to increase in the last two years available, there is no regular trend for NH3, NMVOC and PM2.5. From the displayed emissions trends and shares, it is clear that transport is the main source of NOx,

Final remarks

This work addressed air pollution in Portugal based on an outlook of air pollutant emissions, air quality levels and health indicators, analyzing: emissions of NO2, SO2, NH3, PM10 and PM2.5 with spatial distribution by region (NUT II); concentrations of O3, NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 in ambient air of Portuguese territory; and analysis of mortality associated with causes of death in which air pollution participates as one of the possible causes. This case study sets important information for

Nomenclature

    μm

    micrometer

    APA

    Associação Portuguesa do Ambiente

    CH4

    methane

    CO

    carbon monoxide

    CO2

    carbon dioxide

    DNA

    deoxyribonucleic acid

    INE

    National Statistical Institute

    INERPA

    National Inventory of Emissions

    IQAr

    Air Quality Index

    MF

    masculine/feminine

    NH3

    ammonia

    NO2

    nitrogen dioxide

    NOx

    nitrogen oxide

    OECD

    Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

    PM10

    particulate matter (diameter <10 μm)

    PM2.5

    particulate matter (diameter <2.5 μm)

    SICO

    Information System for Death Certificates

    SIRIC

    System of Civil Registry and

Acknowledgments

This work is a contribution to COST Action CA 15129, DiMoPEx - Diagnosis Monitoring, Prevention of Exposure Related Non-Communicable Diseases.

This work was supported by project “FUTURAR - Air quality in Portugal in 2030: a policy support” (PTDC/AAG-MAA/2569/2014), funded by FEDER through the Operational Program Competitiveness and Internationalization and national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT (Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education) (

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