Association between short-term exposure to ambient air pollution and respiratory health is well documented. At the same time, it is widely known that extreme weather events intrinsically exacerbate air pollution impact. Particularly, hot weather and extreme temperatures during heat waves (HW) significantly affect human health, increasing risks of respiratory mortality and morbidity. Concurrently, a synergistic effect of air pollution and high temperatures can be combined with weather–air pollution interaction during wildfires. The purpose of the current review is to summarize literature on interplay of hot weather, air pollution, and respiratory health consequences worldwide, with the ultimate goal of identifying the most dangerous pollution agents and vulnerable population groups. A literature search was conducted using electronic databases Web of Science, Pubmed, Science Direct, and Scopus, focusing only on peer-reviewed journal articles published in English from 2000 to 2021. The main findings demonstrate that the increased level of PM10 and O3 results in significantly higher rates of respiratory and cardiopulmonary mortality. Increments in PM2.5 and PM10, O3, CO, and NO2 concentrations during high temperature episodes are dramatically associated with higher admissions to hospital in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, daily hospital emergency transports for asthma, acute and chronic bronchitis, and premature mortality caused by respiratory disease. Excessive respiratory health risk is more pronounced in elderly cohorts and small children. Both heat waves and outdoor air pollution are synergistically linked and are expected to be more serious in the future due to greater climate instability, being a crucial threat to global public health that requires the responsible involvement of researchers at all levels. Sustainable urban planning and smart city design could significantly reduce both urban heat islands effect and air pollution.

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Objective. The present article raised the pressing issue of population aging in Russia and investigated the challenges this phenomenon poses to the social security system. As modern studies show, this challenge is typical for both developing and developed countries. The paper intended to propose ways of reforming the pension system of the Russian Federation to ensure its independence from the state budget. Methods. The provided suggestions were based on the analysis of the current demographic problems in Russia, review of the dynamics of its population age composition, consideration of the most popular strategies for reforming pension systems in developed countries, and the specific features of the Russian labor market. Results. Currently, for Russian Federation, the population over the working age grew by 11.6%, and number of the working-age people and those under the working-age decreased by 9.3% and 5.6%, respectively. The inverse dependency ratio ranged from 2.2 to 1.7 in 2019 to the level of 1.78 for 10 years. As a result, it was noted that ignoring the issue of population aging can lead to a decrease in state budget stability and adversely impact the country's economic prosperity. Conclusion. The novelty of the research lies in selection of the main problems of reforming country budgets in connection with the increase in the number of elderly people and changes in the dynamics of pension contributions in connection with the growing expectations of the population. Among other things, the article also highlighted the presence of additional difficulties that may accompany the implementation of the proposed measures.

Considering features of hydrological conditions for hydro-chemical system, this paper analyses the performance of the hydro-ecological status of the Kuban river basin.. The results of the study on water chemical composition depending on the distance from the source are presented. By comparing the results with the reference values of water quality, increased aluminium, zinc, and copper content was established. Respective dendrograms of hydro-ecological studies obtained according to performed analysis for the Kuban River and its tributaries are presented. The relevance of the findings received is p<0.0005 and the correlation coefficient corresponds to 0.935...1. The results of multivariate cluster analysis showed that the Kuban basin has an increased content of particular heavy metals such as aluminium, copper, and zinc.