Search

Abstract Background Residential wood combustion (RWC) is one of the largest sources of fine particles (PM2.5) in the Nordic cities. The current study aims to calculate the related health effects in four studied city areas in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. Methods Health impact assessment (HIA) was employed as the methodology to quantify the health burden. Firstly, the RWC induced annual average PM2.5 concentrations from local sources were estimated with air pollution dispersion modelling. Secondly, the baseline mortality rates were retrieved from the national health registers. Thirdly, the concentration-response function from a previous epidemiological study was applied. For the health impact calculations, the WHO-developed tool AirQ + was used. Results Amongst the studied city areas, the local RWC induced PM2.5 concentration was lowest in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (population-weighted annual average concentration 0.46 µg m− 3) and highest in Oslo (2.77 µg m− 3). Each year, particulate matter attributed to RWC caused around 19 premature deaths in Umeå (95% CI: 8–29), 85 in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (95% CI: 35–129), 78 in Copenhagen (95% CI: 33–118), and 232 premature deaths in Oslo (95% CI: 97–346). The average loss of life years per premature death case was approximately ten years; however, in the whole population, this reflects on average a decrease in life expectancy by 0.25 (0.10–0.36) years. In terms of the relative contributions in cities, life expectancy will be decreased by 0.10 (95% CI: 0.05–0.16), 0.18 (95% CI: 0.07–0.28), 0.22 (95% CI: 0.09–0.33) and 0.63 (95% CI: 0.26–0.96) years in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Umeå, Copenhagen and Oslo respectively. The number of years of life lost was lowest in Umeå (172, 95% CI: 71–260) and highest in Oslo (2458, 95% CI: 1033–3669). Conclusions All four Nordic city areas have a substantial amount of domestic heating, and RWC is one of the most significant sources of PM2.5. This implicates a substantial predicted impact on public health in terms of premature mortality. Thus, several public health measures are needed to reduce the RWC emissions.

Air pollution is a risk for human health and for the preservation of materials in particular cultural heritage objects. This paper presents the main results obtained in the project carried out by the Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Cinema Museum (LTMCM) and NILU-Norwegian Institute for Air Research. The main goal of the project was to perform a screening study and characterization of the indoor air pollution in the LTMCM. The results are used to assess the indoor air quality with regard to the preservation of cultural heritage objects therein. Measurement of NO2, organic acids (i.e. acetic and formic acids), photo-oxidant effects of the environment, climate (temperature and relative humidity) and particulate matter deposition were performed in different indoor locations. Low concentration of outdoor generated pollutants such as NO2 was found in storage rooms whereas higher concentrations were determined in the in the exhibition area. The results indicate that the building envelope does not protect effectively against infiltration of outdoor pollutants such as NO2 and particles. Very high concentration of indoor generated pollutants such as acetic acid was found in one storage room with a significant source. First published online: 11 Oct 2012

We present CO2 emissions from Norway’s tourist travel by the available transport modes, i.e., aviation, maritime (ferries and cruises) and land-based transport (road and railways). Our study includes detailed information on both domestic and international tourist travel within, from and to Norway. We have coupled statistics from several large surveys with detailed emission data to allow us to separate the purpose of the travel (holiday or business).Total transport CO2 emissions for tourists in 2018 were estimated to be 8 530 kt, equivalent to 19% of the reported Norwegian national CO2 emissions. Of these emissions, international tourists visiting Norway were responsible for 3 273 kt CO2, whereas travel by Norwegians accounted for 4 875 kt CO2, most of which occur outside Norway’s reporting obligations. Aviation and maritime transport were found to be the largest emission sources, responsible for 71% and 21% of total CO2 emissions, respectively. The reduction due to the COVID-19 pandemic was approximately 60% in 2020, and was sustained throughout the year.Our study shows that officially reported emissions, as limited to the countries territory, are not suitable for accurate evaluation of transport CO2 emissions related to tourism. A consumer or tourist-based calculation gives a marked redistribution of emission responsibility. Our results indicate that emissions from Norwegian residents travelling abroad are 1 602 kt higher than those from tourists coming to Norway. This is driven by frequent trips to popular tourist destinations such as Spain, Thailand, Turkey and Greece. Globally consumer based calculations would shift the responsibility of emissions by tourists to the large wealthy nations, with the most international tourists. The understanding of emission distributed by population group or market support in addition the developing of marketing strategies to attract low emission tourist markets and create awareness among the nations with higher shares of international tourist.

Emissions from wood burning for heating in secondary homes or cabins is an important part in the development of high-resolution emissions in specific areas. Norway is used as case study as 20% of the national wood consumption for heating occurs in cabins. Our study first shows a method to estimate emissions from cabins based on traffic data to derive cabin occupancy, which combined with heating need allows for the spatial and temporal distribution of emissions. The combination of residential (RWC) and cabin wood combustion (CWC) emissions shows large spatial and temporal differences, and a temporally “cabin population” can in areas be orders of magnitude larger than the registered population. While RWC emissions have been steadily reduced, CWC have kept relatively constant or even increased, which results in an increase in the cabin share to total heating emissions up to 25–35%. When comparing with regional emission inventories, our study shows that the gradient between rural and urban areas is not well-represented in regional inventories, which resembles a population-based distribution and does not allocate emissions in cabin municipalities. CWC emissions may become an increasing environmental concern as higher densification trends in mountain areas are observed.

The way Norway is spearheading electrification in the transport sector is of global interest. In this study, we used the Norwegian Emissions from Road Vehicle Exhaust (NERVE) model, a bottom-up high-resolution traffic emission model, to calculate all emissions in Norway (2009–2020) and evaluate potential co-benefit and trade-offs of policies to target climate change mitigation, air quality and socioeconomic factors. Results for municipal data with regard to traffic growth, road network influences, vehicle composition, emissions and energy consumption are presented. Light vehicle CO2 emissions per kilometer have been reduced by 22% since 2009, mainly driven by an increasing bio-fuel mixing and battery electric vehicles (BEV) share. BEVs are mostly located in and around the main cities, areas with young vehicle fleets, and strong local incentives. Beneficiaries of BEVs incentives have been a subset of the population with strong economic indicators. The incentivized growth in the share of diesel-fuelled passenger vehicles has been turned, and together with Euro6 emission standards, light vehicle NOx emissions have been halved since peaking in 2014. BEVs represent an investment in emission reductions in years to come, and current sales set Norway up for an accelerated decline in all exhaust emissions despite the continual growth in traffic.

In order to evaluate the potential impact of the Arctic anthropogenic emission sources it is essential to understand better the natural aerosol sources of the inner Arctic and the atmospheric processing of the aerosols during their transport in the Arctic atmosphere. A 1-year time series of chemically specific measurements of the sub-micrometre aerosol during 2015 has been taken at the Mt. Zeppelin observatory in the European Arctic. A source apportionment study combined measured molecular tracers as source markers, positive matrix factorization, analysis of the potential source distribution and auxiliary information from satellite data and ground-based observations. The annual average sub-micrometre mass was apportioned to regional background secondary sulphate (56%), sea spray (17%), biomass burning (15%), secondary nitrate (5.8%), secondary marine biogenic (4.5%), mixed combustion (1.6%), and two types of marine gel sources (together 0.7%). Secondary nitrate aerosol mainly contributed towards the end of summer and during autumn. During spring and summer, the secondary marine biogenic factor reached a contribution of up to 50% in some samples. The most likely origin of the mixed combustion source is due to oil and gas extraction activities in Eastern Siberia. The two marine polymer gel sources predominantly occurred in autumn and winter. The small contribution of the marine gel sources at Mt. Zeppelin observatory in summer as opposed to regions closer to the North Pole is attributed to differences in ocean biology, vertical distribution of phytoplankton, and the earlier start of the summer season.

In this study we apply two methods for data collection that are relatively new in the field of atmospheric science. The two developed methods are designed to collect essential geo-localized information to be used as input data for a high resolution emission inventory for residential wood combustion (RWC). The first method is a webcrawler that extracts openly online available real estate data in a systematic way, and thereafter structures them for analysis. The webcrawler reads online Norwegian real estate advertisements and it collects the geo-position of the dwellings. Dwellings are classified according to the type (e.g., apartment, detached house) they belong to and the heating systems they are equipped with. The second method is a model trained for image recognition and classification based on machine learning techniques. The images from the real estate advertisements are collected and processed to identify wood burning installations, which are automatically classified according to the three classes used in official statistics, i.e., open fireplaces, stoves produced before 1998 and stoves produced after 1998. The model recognizes and classifies the wood appliances with a precision of 81%, 85% and 91% for open fireplaces, old stoves and new stoves, respectively. Emission factors are heavily dependent on technology and this information is therefore essential for determining accurate emissions. The collected data are compared with existing information from the statistical register at county and national level in Norway. The comparison shows good agreement for the proportion of residential heating systems between the webcrawled data and the official statistics. The high resolution and level of detail of the extracted data show the value of open data to improve emission inventories. With the increased amount and availability of data, the techniques presented here add significant value to emission accuracy and potential applications should also be considered across all emission sectors.