Air pollution: A public health approach for Portugal
Graphical abstract
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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