By Nneka Nwogwugwu
A study has revealed that nearly 180,000 deaths recorded over 14 years in fast-growing tropical cities were caused by a rapid rise in emerging air pollution.
The report, published Friday, April 8, 2022, in Science Advances by the University College London, identifies rapid degradation in air quality and increases in urban exposure to air pollutants, as corridors of health hazards.
The researchers attributed this rapid degradation in air quality to emerging industries and residential sources like road traffic, waste burning, and widespread use of charcoal and fuelwood.
The tropical cities analysed in this study spread across Africa, South Asia, South-East Asia, and the Middle East.
Africa – Abidjan, Abuja, Addis Ababa, Antananarivo, Bamako, Blantyre, Conakry, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kampala, Kano, Khartoum, Kigali, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lilongwe, Luanda, Lubumbashi, Lusaka, Mombasa, N’Djamena, Nairobi, Niamey, Ouagadougou;
South Asia – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Chittagong, Dhaka, Hyderabad, Karachi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Surat;
South-East Asia – Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, Phnom Penh, Yangon;
Middle East – Riyadh, Sana’a.
Across all these cities, the authors found significant annual increases in pollutants directly hazardous to the health of up to 14 per cent for nitrogen dioxide and up to eight per cent for fine particles, as well as increases in precursors of the same fine particles of up to 12 per cent for ammonia and up to 11 per cent for reactive volatile organic compounds.
Open burning of biomass for land clearance and agricultural waste disposal has in the past overwhelmingly dominated air pollution in the tropics.
”Our analysis suggests we’re entering a new era of air pollution in these cities, with some experiencing rates of degradation in a year that other cities experienced in a decade,” said Lead author Dr Karn Vohra, who completed the study as a PhD student at the University of Birmingham.
Source: The Punch