Journal article
Estimating the health benefits from natural gas use in transport and heating in Santiago, Chile
The Science of the total environment, Vol.429, pp.257-265
07/01/2012
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.04.037
PMID: 22595553
Abstract
Chilean law requires the assessment of air pollution control strategies for their costs and benefits. Here we employ an online weather and chemical transport model, WRF-Chem, and a gridded population density map, LANDSCAN, to estimate changes in fine particle pollution exposure, health benefits, and economic valuation for two emission reduction strategies based on increasing the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) in Santiago, Chile. The first scenario, switching to a CNG public transportation system, would reduce urban PM2.5 emissions by 229t/year. The second scenario would reduce wood burning emissions by 671t/year, with unique hourly emission reductions distributed from daily heating demand. The CNG bus scenario reduces annual PM2.5 by 0.33μg/m3 and up to 2μg/m3 during winter months, while the residential heating scenario reduces annual PM2.5 by 2.07μg/m3, with peaks exceeding 8μg/m3 during strong air pollution episodes in winter months. These ambient pollution reductions lead to 36 avoided premature mortalities for the CNG bus scenario, and 229 for the CNG heating scenario. Both policies are shown to be cost-effective ways of reducing air pollution, as they target high-emitting area pollution sources and reduce concentrations over densely populated urban areas as well as less dense areas outside the city limits. Unlike the concentration rollback methods commonly used in public policy analyses, which assume homogeneous reductions across a whole city (including homogeneous population densities), and without accounting for the seasonality of certain emissions, this approach accounts for both seasonality and diurnal emission profiles for both the transportation and residential heating sectors.
► Recent trends in air quality and emissions in Santiago, Chile are described. ► Health benefits of reducing wood burning and public transportation emissions are estimated. ► WRF-Chem and LANDSCAN are used to estimate changes in exposure to PM2.5. ► Heating degree days are used as a proxy to heating demand to estimate seasonality of emissions.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Estimating the health benefits from natural gas use in transport and heating in Santiago, Chile
- Creators
- Marcelo Mena-Carrasco - Center for Sustainability Research, Universidad Andrés Bello, ChileEstefania Oliva - Center for Sustainability Research, Universidad Andrés Bello, ChilePablo Saide - Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, USAScott N Spak - Public Policy Center, The University of Iowa, USACristóbal de la Maza - Chilean Ministry of the Environment, ChileMauricio Osses - Center for Sustainability Research, Universidad Andrés Bello, ChileSebastián Tolvett - International Sustainable Systems Research Center, USAJ. Elliott Campbell - School of Engineering, University of California at Merced, USATsao es Chi-Chung Tsao - School of Engineering, University of California at Merced, USALuisa T Molina - Molina Center for Energy and Environment, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The Science of the total environment, Vol.429, pp.257-265
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.04.037
- PMID
- 22595553
- NLM abbreviation
- Sci Total Environ
- ISSN
- 0048-9697
- eISSN
- 1879-1026
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/01/2012
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research; Public Policy Center (Archive); School of Planning and Public Affairs
- Record Identifier
- 9983993028602771
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