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Abbass RA, Kumar P, El-Gendy A. Fine particulate matter exposure in four transport modes of Greater Cairo. Sci Total Environ 2021; 791:148104. [PMID: 34126484 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148104] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2021] [Revised: 05/18/2021] [Accepted: 05/24/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The number of daily commuters in Greater Cairo has exceeded 15 million nevertheless personal exposure studies in transport microenvironments are limited. The aim of this study is to quantify PM2.5 exposure during peak hours in four transport modes of Greater Cairo - car (windows-open, windows-closed with recirculation and AC-on), microbus (windows-open), cycling and walking - and understand its underlying drivers. Data was collected using a pDR-1500 monitor and analysed to capture concentration variations, spatial variability, exposure doses, commuting costs versus inhaled doses, health burden and economic losses. Car with recirculation resulted in the least average PM2.5 concentrations (32 ± 6 μg/m3), followed by walking (77 ± 35 μg/m3), car with windows-open (82 ± 32 μg/m3), microbus with windows-open (96 ± 29 μg/m3) and cycling (100 ± 28 μg/m3). Evening hours observed average PM2.5 concentrations by 26-58% lesser than morning. Spatial variability analysis showed that 75th-90th percentile PM2.5 concentrations coincided with congested spots. Cycling and walking lanes are rare hence commuters are exposed to surges in PM2.5 concentrations when passing near construction and solid waste burning sites. Cycling and walking also resulted in inhaling 40-times and 32-times higher PM2.5 dose per kilometre than for car with recirculation. Commuting by microbus cost (with windows-open) ~45% of car cost (with recirculation) but it resulted in 4-times higher inhaled PM2.5 dose. As expected due to the lowest PM2.5 exposure concentrations, health burden resulting from car travel (with recirculation) caused the least death rates of 0.07 (95% CI 0.07-0.08) prematures deaths per 100,000 commuters/year while microbus with windows-open resulted in the highest death rates; 0.52 (95% CI 0.49-0.56). Microbus deaths represent 57% of national economic losses due to PM2.5 exposure amongst the four transport modes. This study provides real-time exposure data and analyses its implications on commuter health as a first step in informed decision-making and better urban planning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rana Alaa Abbass
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
| | - Prashant Kumar
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
| | - Ahmed El-Gendy
- Department of Construction Engineering, School of Sciences and Engineering, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo 11835, Egypt
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Kumar P, Hama S, Nogueira T, Abbass RA, Brand VS, Andrade MDF, Asfaw A, Aziz KH, Cao SJ, El-Gendy A, Islam S, Jeba F, Khare M, Mamuya SH, Martinez J, Meng MR, Morawska L, Muula AS, Shiva Nagendra SM, Ngowi AV, Omer K, Olaya Y, Osano P, Salam A. In-car particulate matter exposure across ten global cities. Sci Total Environ 2021; 750:141395. [PMID: 32858288 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2020] [Revised: 07/13/2020] [Accepted: 07/29/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Cars are a commuting lifeline worldwide, despite contributing significantly to air pollution. This is the first global assessment on air pollution exposure in cars across ten cities: Dhaka (Bangladesh); Chennai (India); Guangzhou (China); Medellín (Colombia); São Paulo (Brazil); Cairo (Egypt); Sulaymaniyah (Iraq); Addis Ababa (Ethiopia); Blantyre (Malawi); and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania). Portable laser particle counters were used to develop a proxy of car-user exposure profiles and analyse the factors affecting particulate matter ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5; fine fraction) and ≤10 μm (PM2.5-10; coarse fraction). Measurements were carried out during morning, off- and evening-peak hours under windows-open and windows-closed (fan-on and recirculation) conditions on predefined routes. For all cities, PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations were highest during windows-open, followed by fan-on and recirculation. Compared with recirculation, PM2.5 and PM10 were higher by up to 589% (Blantyre) and 1020% (São Paulo), during windows-open and higher by up to 385% (São Paulo) and 390% (São Paulo) during fan-on, respectively. Coarse particles dominated the PM fraction during windows-open while fine particles dominated during fan-on and recirculation, indicating filter effectiveness in removing coarse particles and a need for filters that limit the ingress of fine particles. Spatial variation analysis during windows-open showed that pollution hotspots make up to a third of the total route-length. PM2.5 exposure for windows-open during off-peak hours was 91% and 40% less than morning and evening peak hours, respectively. Across cities, determinants of relatively high personal exposure doses included lower car speeds, temporally longer journeys, and higher in-car concentrations. It was also concluded that car-users in the least affluent cities experienced disproportionately higher in-car PM2.5 exposures. Cities were classified into three groups according to low, intermediate and high levels of PM exposure to car commuters, allowing to draw similarities and highlight best practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Prashant Kumar
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
| | - Sarkawt Hama
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
| | - Thiago Nogueira
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; Departamento de Saúde Ambiental - Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas - Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas - IAG, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Rana Alaa Abbass
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
| | - Veronika S Brand
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas - Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas - IAG, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Maria de Fatima Andrade
- Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas - Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas - IAG, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Araya Asfaw
- Physics Department, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
| | - Kosar Hama Aziz
- Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
| | - Shi-Jie Cao
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; School of Architecture, Southeast University, Nanjing 21009, China; Academy of Building Energy Efficiency, School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Ahmed El-Gendy
- Department of Construction Engineering, School of Sciences and Engineering, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo 11835, Egypt
| | - Shariful Islam
- Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
| | - Farah Jeba
- Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
| | - Mukesh Khare
- Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
| | - Simon Henry Mamuya
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania
| | - Jenny Martinez
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia
| | - Ming-Rui Meng
- Academy of Building Energy Efficiency, School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
| | - Lidia Morawska
- Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, United Kingdom; International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
| | | | - S M Shiva Nagendra
- Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India
| | - Aiwerasia Vera Ngowi
- Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania
| | - Khalid Omer
- Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
| | - Yris Olaya
- Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia
| | | | - Abdus Salam
- Department of Chemistry, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
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Pacitto A, Amato F, Salmatonidis A, Moreno T, Alastuey A, Reche C, Buonanno G, Benito C, Querol X. Effectiveness of commercial face masks to reduce personal PM exposure. Sci Total Environ 2019; 650:1582-1590. [PMID: 30308844 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2018] [Revised: 09/04/2018] [Accepted: 09/08/2018] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
Cycling and walking are promoted as means of transportation which can contribute to the reduction of traffic pollution in urban areas. However, cyclists and pedestrians may be exposed to high concentrations of air pollutants due to their proximity to vehicle emissions. Commercial face mask respirators are widely used, in both developing and developed countries, as an individual protective measure against particle pollution. However scientific data on the efficacy of face mask respirators in reducing airborne particle exposure is limited. In this study, a custom experimental set-up was developed in order to measure the effectiveness of nine different respirators under real environmental conditions in terms of particle mass concentration below 2.5 μm (PM2.5), particle number concentration (PNC), Lung Deposited Surface Area (LDSA) and Black Carbon concentration (BC). Face mask performances were assessed in a typical traffic affected urban background environment in the city of Barcelona under three different simulated breathing rates to investigate the influence of flow rate. Results showed a median face mask effectiveness for PM2.5 equal to 48% in a range of 14-96%, 19% in a range of 6%-61% for BC concentration, 19% in a range of 4%-63% for PNC and 22% in a range of 5%-65% for LDSA. For each pollutant under investigation, the best performance was found always with the same mask (N7) although it is not the most expensive (in a range of price of 1 to 44, its cost was 20 euros), which has a filter on the entire surface except for the 2 exhalation valves where air cannot enter but just exit and shows a good fit on the dummy head.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Pacitto
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain; Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino (FR), Italy
| | - F Amato
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain.
| | - A Salmatonidis
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
| | - T Moreno
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
| | - A Alastuey
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
| | - C Reche
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
| | - G Buonanno
- International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia; Department of Engineering, University "Parthenope", Naples, Italy; Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino (FR), Italy
| | - C Benito
- BACC, Bicicleta Club de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
| | - X Querol
- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDÆA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
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