SEI researchers discuss the health impacts of air pollution, and the related health questions and policy lessons emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Air quality, climate and environmental change
Air Quality, Climate and Environmental Change combines consideration of both mitigation and adaptation to environmental threats, with a particular focus on scenario development, biogeochemical cycling, emissions and pollution monitoring and associated impacts on human health and adaptive response to environmental change across scales.
Blanket bog peatland in Yorkshire under threat from climate change. Photo: Andreas Heinemeyer/SEI
Climate and environmental change are two of the biggest global challenges, affecting food security, water provisioning and peoples’ livelihoods. In addition, air quality is of growing concern, affecting human health directly through air pollution in many cities and indirectly via impacts on crop production. Overall environmental degradation has reached an unprecedented level, affecting ecosystem services provisioning right across the globe. On top of human-induced climate change, agriculture as well as manufacturing and industries are some of the main causes of this degradation.
SEI York assesses these impacts at local, regional and national level in various areas across the globe. Researchers combine direct measurements with model tools to unravel the underpinning mechanisms and ecosystem responses as well as identifying solutions.
During the years 2015-2019, SEI invested in research, tool development and capacity enhancement as part of the initiative on Low Emissions Development Pathways.
The first study to quantify the global burden of asthma linked to air pollution finds that it triggers up to 33 million annual emergency room visits.
Deposition of Ozone for Stomatal Exchange (DO3SE) estimates the total and stomatal deposition of ozone to European land-cover types and plant species.
This initiative enables integrated national planning for Nationally Determined Contributions and Sustainable Development Goals.
INI brings scientists together across the nitrogen cycle and develops links with the wide range of environmental, agriculture, energy and other policy areas.
Developing a new generation of process based crop models to better understand the mechanisms and impacts of multiple stresses.
Developing technical and non-technical solutions to industrial pollution problems in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The AIR (Action for Interdisciplinary Air Pollution Research) Network uses a transdisciplinary method to address air pollution in informal settlements in Kenya.
This article presents the first global assessment of the association between preterm births and exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution.
- Opportunities for increasing ambition of Nationally Determined Contributions through integrated air pollution and climate change planning: A practical guidance document
- Integrated assessment of short-lived climate pollutants in Latin America and the Caribbean
- The Global Atmospheric Pollution Forum (GAPF) emission inventory preparation tool and its application to Côte d’Ivoire
- Mitigating the impacts of air pollutants in Nepal and climate co-benefits: a scenario-based approach
- Measurement-based assessment of the regional contribution and drivers of reduction in annual and daily fine particulate matter impact metrics in Paris, France (2009–2018)
- Current and future ozone risks to global terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem processes
Improving our understanding of peatland science is crucial for future climate change predictions and for its inclusion in earth system models.
- Assessing soil compaction and micro-topography impacts of alternative heather cutting as compared to burning as part of grouse moor management on blanket bog
- Impacts of tropospheric ozone exposure on peatland microbial consumers
- Robust decision-making under uncertainty for a moorland ecosystem’s water resources management under scenarios of climate variability
- The MILLENNIA peat cohort model: Predicting past, present and future soil carbon budgets and fluxes under changing climates in peatlands
- Processes controlling DOC in pore water during simulated drought cycles in six different UK peats
- The ‘Gas-Snake’: Design and validation of a versatile membrane-based gas flux measurement system in a grassland soil respiration study
