Benefit Analysis of the 1st Spanish Air Pollution Control Programme on Health Impacts and Associated Externalities

Abstract

This paper aims to provide scientific support for decision-making in the field of improving air quality by evaluating pollution reduction measures included in the current Spanish policy framework of the 1st National Air Pollution Control Programme (NAPCP). First, the health impacts of air quality are estimated by using the concentrations estimated by multiscale air quality modeling and the recommended concentration–response functions (CRF), specifically as a result of exposure to particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3). Second, the associated external costs are calculated by monetization techniques. Two scenarios are analyzed: a package including existing measures (WM2030) and a package with additional measures (WAM2030). Compared with the baseline scenario, an improvement was found in the health effects of NO2, PM10, and PM2.5, while for O3 there was a slight worsening, mainly due to the increase in the O3 metric used (SOMO35), which increases over some urban areas. Despite this, the monetary valuation of the total effects on health as a whole shows external benefits due to the adoption of measures (WM2030), compared with the reference scenario (no measures) of more than € 17.5 billion and, when considering the additional measures (WAM2030), benefits of about € 58.1 billion.

High Spatial Resolution Assessment of the Effect of the Spanish National Air Pollution Control Programme on Street-Level NO2 Concentrations in Three Neighborhoods of Madrid (Spain) Using Mesoscale and CFD Modelling

“…The impact of the Spanish National Air Pollution Control Programme (NAPCP) on air quality and health impacts has been previously assessed at a national level at a coarse resolution (10 × 10 km 2 ) [2,31]. However, the distribution of concentrations of pollutants such as NO 2 in urban areas at microscale get smoothed out in coarse resolution treatments.…”

Self-Assessment Adaptive Capacity Indicators of Health Risks from Air Pollution

“…Air pollution claimed an estimated seven million lives annually worldwide [1][2][3][4]. The World Health Organization (WHO) and several studies reported that people in urban areas breathe air contaminated with high levels of pollutants [5,6].…”