2023 CiteScore: 1.9
eISSN: 2476-3071
Editor-in-Chief:
Ramin Nabizadeh Nodehi, Ph.D.
Vol 6 No 2 (2021): Spring 2021
Original Research
-
Introduction: Land transportation encompasses the movement of people and
goods and is therefore a major contributor of global greenhouses gases. The
main share of such emissions is mostly from the release of carbon dioxide into
the air as a result of burning transportation fuels obtained from petroleum, a
major driver of climate change. While today the defining issue is a changing
climate, the number of vehicles on roads keep on rising around the world.Materials and methods: This study assessed the relationship between land
transportation and climate change using a system dynamics model based on a
3-layered taxonomy using Mauritius Island as case study. Over 100 papers were
analyzed and the variables that link land transportation and climate change in
the Mauritian context were selected and a taxonomy divided into sub-units was
built.Results: This innovative taxonomy was divided into 3 sections related to the
land transportation sector including a vehicle layer, transport system layer
and society layer. Using these variables, three stock and flow diagrams were
constructed on Vensim, namely climate change impacts, transport related
carbon dioxide and socio-economic models.Conclusion: While there is a complex relationship between land transportation
and climate change globally, Mauritius must find ways to become more climate
friendly in the land transportation sector. -
Introduction: One of the effects of air pollution in the community was
increasing mortality rate. Determination of contamination was the first step in
improving the existing conditions. Therefore, the way of pollutants distribution
and the timing and spatial changes were important. This study aimed to evaluate
the risk of Parental Emissions (PE) of Isfahan steel company using AERMOD.
Materials and methods: In this research, the distribution of suspended
particles of the Isfahan steel company were modeled in the AERMOD for 1
h, 24 h and yearly average (30×30 km2
), then the comparison of the average
concentrations modeled with air standards clean country and Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) regional risk maps were provided in Arc GIS.
Results: The prediction of the distribution of 24-h mean concentrations
indicated that the maximum value for the 24-h average was equal to 8.52
EPA and 25.25 times, the standard Iran's clean air. Also, the prediction of the
distribution of average annual concentrations indicated that the maximum value
for the average annual time was 91.1 times, the EPA standard and 4.78% higher
than Iran's clean air standard.
Conclusion: Health risk maps show that the risk spot was not regional in the
direction of the region's wind and topography of the region was the main factor
in the distribution of risky spots in the region. Legitimate use of the AERMOD
could be useful in managing, controlling, and evaluating air pollutants especially
in industrial units of the country -
Introduction: This study provides a scientometric analysis of the health impact
assessment within AirQ between 2005 and 2019, which are listed in the web
science databases. Studies have been conducted in various indexed journals,
researchers in World Health Organization (WHO) regional areas on product
articles, international collaboration, and citation and keyword analysis.
Materials and methods: Bibliographic records of research publications and
articles were found and after screening process were input to study plan. The
authors compared the growth of article that was published in this period time,
conducted a citation and co-authorship analysis, and keywords co-occurrences
relationship by publication using the scientometric visualization, VOSviewer.
Results: The AirQ applying tool in research literature has seen most increase in
2017 production over the study period. Contributions by authors affiliated with
WHO-Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) account for the most
research literature. Most of studies focus on particles Particulate Matter with
diameter <10 µm (PM10) and Particulate Matter with diameter <2.5µm (PM2.5)
and according to total mortality and in hospital admission, Respiratory Disease
(RD) and Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) are most commonly.
Conclusion: All potential of AirQ has not been used in studies. Despite
all function its scope is limited to several countries in the WHO regions.
Implementation of “Driving Force, Pressure, State, Exposure, Effect, and
Action” (DPSEEA) conceptual model need some evidence that AirQ can
achieve and estimate Health Impact Assessment (HIA) but we didn’t find any
articles that work on intervention by it on policy makers and management
programs. -
Introduction: The impacts of building layout on pedestrian level wind
comfort and gas pollutant diffusion are simulated using computational fluid
dynamics method.
Materials and methods: The control equations of flow and pollutant diffusion
are solved by using ANSYS Fluent. The SIMPLE algorithm is selected for the
pressure-velocity coupling. The data from wind tunnel experiment at Tokyo
Polytechnic University is employed in the validation case.
Results: The velocity field and turbulence intensity at pedestrian level under
different building layouts are obtained. The distribution and evaluation of
wind comfort grade and pollutant concentration are given.
Conclusion: Building layouts have significant impacts on flow and pollutant
diffusion at pedestrian level. The outward staggered layout of building group
can improve both wind comfort grade and air quality, but the inward staggered
layout has the adverse effect. Non-staggered layouts are the worst in terms of
the wind comfort grade in this paper. -
Introduction: Particulate Matter (PM), also known as aerosol, is the sum
of all particles suspended in droplets floating in the air, which can have
harmful impacts on humans all over the world. This cross-sectional study
set out to evaluate the potential health effects of over-exposure to PM10 and
PM2.5 on aggravating mortality and hospitalization due to cardiovascular and
respiratory diseases among Arak citizens.
Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional survey, AirQ+ model was
used to estimate the health impacts of two particulate air pollutants (PM10 and
PM2.5) based on Relative Risk (RR), and Baseline Incidence (BI) obtained
from reference documents.
Results: According to the calculations, the attributable proportion percentage
(AP%) and attributable excess cases (persons) for total mortality from PM10
were 3.3% (95% CI, 2.8%-3.8%) in 2014 vs. 4.9% (95% CI, 4.1%-5.6%) in
2015 and 99 persons in 2014 vs. 148 persons in 2015, respectively. Likewise,
the AP (%) and the number of excess cases (persons) calculated for total
mortality from PM2.5 were 3.3% (95% CI, 2.6%-4.1%) in 2014 vs. 1.1%
(95% CI, 0.8%-1.3%) in 2015 and 99 persons in 2014 vs. 33 persons in 2015,
respectively.
Conclusion: In this study, it was found that dominant west winds could
increase the particle matters produced from power plants, petrochemical
plants, and western dust storm, leading to a surge in the mortality and
morbidity related to particulate air pollutants in Arak. -
Introduction: Today, 25% of diseases in the world are directly or indirectly
caused by environmental problems. The present study attempts to clarify
physicians’ moral responsibility in this regard and the roles they can play
to decrease environmental problems. It also evaluates their attitudes towards
and performance of these roles. The clarification of this issue paves the way
for interventions through effective education or policy-making, as well as
directing useful research.
Materials and methods: A questionnaire was developed based on the results
of qualitive study. The questionnaire assessed physicians’ awareness, attitude,
and performance with regard to their environmental moral responsibilities.
Results: Physicians with longer work experience had better performance.
Those who worked in offices or at universities had also better performances
compared to those working in hospitals. Physicians with more awareness
had better performance, especially those who had acquired this awareness
through books and educational workshops.
The source of information was an effective factor on the gap between
physicians’ attitude and performance scores those who had acquired
information from books had the narrowest gap and those who had received
information from social networks had the widest gap between attitude and
performance scores.
Conclusion: The health system and the environment and its problems are
intertwined and greatly influence each other. Thus this interrelation and the
necessity of being concerned and having moral sensitivity were explained.
