Current and Future Particulate‐Matter‐Related Mortality Risks in the United States from Aviation Emissions During Landing and Takeoff

Abstract

Demand for air travel is projected to increase in the upcoming years, with a corresponding influence on emissions, air quality, and public health. The trajectory of health impacts would be influenced by not just emissions growth, but also changes in nonaviation ambient concentrations that influence secondary fine particulate matter (PM(2.5) ) formation, population growth and aging, and potential shifts in PM(2.5) concentration-response functions (CRFs). However, studies to date have not systematically evaluated the individual and joint contributions of these factors to health risk trajectories. In this study, we simulated emissions during landing and takeoff from aircraft at 99 airports across the United States for 2005 and for a 2025 flight activity projection scenario. We applied the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model with the Speciated Modeled Attainment Test (SMAT) to determine the contributions of these emissions to ambient concentrations, including scenarios with 2025 aircraft emissions and 2005 nonaviation air quality. We combined CMAQ outputs with PM(2.5) mortality CRFs and population projections, and evaluated the influence of changing emissions, nonaviation concentrations, and population factors. Given these scenarios, aviation-related health impacts would increase by a factor of 6.1 from 2005 to 2025, with a factor of 2.1 attributable to emissions, a factor of 1.3 attributable to population factors, and a factor of 2.3 attributable to changing nonaviation concentrations which enhance secondary PM(2.5) formation. Our study emphasizes that the public health burden of aviation emissions would be significantly influenced by the joint effects of flight activity increases, nonaviation concentration changes, and population growth and aging.

Analysis of the effects of meteorology on aircraft exhaust dispersion and deposition using a Lagrangian particle model

“…The non-ideal combustion conditions within engines may lead to the emission of by-products, including sulfur oxides, additional nitrogen oxides, unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate soot (Dakhel et al, 2007;Timko et al, 2010;Yu et al, 2010Yu et al, , 2012Kinsey et al, 2011;Masiol and Harrison, 2014). These substances are emitted within the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) during the Landing TakeOff cycle (LTO) and can have plausibly local and direct effects on human health (Ratliff et al, 2009;Levy et al, 2012;Schlenker and Walker, 2012;Ashok et al, 2013;Yim et al, 2013). Moreover, recent studies pointed out that LTO emissions' impacts on human health are significant in terms of aerosol loading (Barrett et al, 2010(Barrett et al, , 2012.…”

Particulate matter, air quality and climate: lessons learned and future needs

“…Recent studies indicate that aircraft emissions contribute significantly to particle mass and particle number (PN) concentration in the vicinity of airports (Arunachalam et al, 2011;Dodson et al, 2009;Hsu et al, 2012;Hu et al, 2009;Levy et al, 2012;Stettler et al, 2011;Unal et al, 2005;Yu et al, 2004). POA dominates the total aerosol at low engine loads, corresponding to idle and taxiing operation Presto et al, 2011;Timko et al, 2010).…”

Updated Correlation Between Aircraft Smoke Number and Black Carbon Concentration

“…This method is routinely used to estimate the public health impacts of aircraft LTO PM emissions in the United States (Ratliff et al 2009;CSSI Inc. 2010;Arunachalam et al 2011;Levy et al 2011;Woody et al 2011). While several studies have measured the mass of emitted BC per unit fuel burned, known as EI(BC), the majority of engines in service have not been measured and for these the SN remains the only measure of their PM emissions (Timko et al 2010).…”