2023-09-20 17:14:01
The first global study of the increase in pollution caused by landscape fires around the world over the last two decades reveals that more than 2 billion people are exposed annually to at least one day to environmental hazards potentially harmful to health: a figure which has increased by 6.8% in the last ten years.
The study highlights the severity and scale of air pollution caused by fires across the landscape, its wider impact on the global population and the associated increased risk to public health. Exposure to air pollution from wildfires has many adverse health impacts, including increased mortality and morbidity and overall worsening of cardiorespiratory conditions and mental health.
The study, published in ‘Nature‘ and led by Australian scientists, estimated global daily air pollution caused by all fires between 2000 and 2019, and found that 2.18 billion people were exposed to at least one day of substantial air pollution from fires in each landscape. year, and each person in the world has an average of 9.9 days of exposure per year, an increase of 2.1 percent over the last decade. It also found that exposure levels in low-income countries were about four times higher than in high-income countries.
Led by professors Yuming Guo and Shanshan Li, from the Monash University (Australia), the study also found that PM 2.5 exposure levels were particularly high in Central Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and Siberia. It also analyzed the global landscape of fire ozone, a major fire-related pollutant that has only been estimated for the United States.
In the study, landscape fires refer to all fires burning in natural and cultural landscapes, e.g. natural and planted forests, shrubs, grasslands, pastures, agricultural land and peri-urban areas, including planned or controlled fires (e.g. , prescribed burning, agricultural fires). fires) and forest fires (defined as uncontrolled or unplanned fires that burn in wild vegetation).
Canadian fires
The comprehensive assessment of global population exposure to PM 2.5 and ozone from fires during the period 2000-2019 was calculated using a machine learning approach with input from chemical transport models, monitoring stations terrestrial and gridded meteorological data.
Recent pollution from Canadian wildfires that spread smoke across North America highlighted increasing severity and the frequency of landscape fires due to climate change.
According to Guo, no study to date has looked at the long-term effect of this increase in wildfires globally, and wildfires often affect remote areas where there are few or no air quality monitoring stations. Furthermore, in many low-income countries there are no air quality monitoring stations, even in urban areas.
«Exposure to air pollution caused by wildfire smoke traveling hundreds“s and, sometimes even thousands of kilometers, can affect much larger populations and cause much greater public health risks,” he notes.
«Mapping and tracking population exposure to air pollution caused by fires in the landscape is essential to monitor and manage their health impacts, implement prevention and targeted interventions, and strengthen the case for climate change mitigation. ».
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