Public Health Costs of Primary PM2.5 and Inorganic PM2.5 Precursor Emissions in the United States

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• 作者：Jinhyok Heo ; Peter J. Adams ; H. Oliver Gao
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：June 7, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：50
• 期：11
• 页码：6061-6070
• 全文大小：603K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Current methods of estimating the public health effects of emissions are computationally too expensive or do not fully address complex atmospheric processes, frequently limiting their applications to policy research. Using a reduced-form model derived from tagged chemical transport model (CTM) simulations, we present PM_2.5 mortality costs per tonne of inorganic air pollutants with the 36 km × 36 km spatial resolution of source location in the United States, providing the most comprehensive set of such estimates comparable to CTM-based estimates. Our estimates vary by 2 orders of magnitude. Emission-weighted seasonal averages were estimated at $88,000–130,000/t PM_2.5 (inert primary), $14,000–24,000/t SO₂, $3,800–14,000/t NO_x, and $23,000–66,000/t NH₃. The aggregate social costs for year 2005 emissions were estimated at $1.0 trillion dollars. Compared to other studies, our estimates have similar magnitudes and spatial distributions for primary PM_2.5 but substantially different spatial patterns for precursor species where secondary chemistry is important. For example, differences of more than a factor of 10 were found in many areas of Texas, New Mexico, and New England states for NO_x and of California, Texas, and Maine for NH₃. Our method allows for updates as emissions inventories and CTMs improve, enhancing the potential to link policy research to up-to-date atmospheric science.