The Science of the total environment
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Sci. Total Environ. · May 2019
Comparative StudyBiomonitoring of children exposure to urban pollution and environmental tobacco smoke with hair analysis - A pilot study on children living in Paris and Yeu Island, France.
The impact of pollution on children's health has been increasingly pointed out in numerous studies which emphasized their increased vulnerability compared to adults. This pilot study investigated the relevance of hair analysis for the assessment of children exposure to pollution and to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). The methodology based on GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS, is the first one to investigate simultaneously parent PAH (n = 15), PAH metabolites (n = 56), nicotine and cotinine in a biological matrix. ⋯ Eight of these biomarkers presented a significantly higher concentration in children from Paris than from Yeu Island. The results suggest association between PAH exposure and estimated time of exposure to vehicle exhaust as well as higher exposure to both PAH and ETS in the youngest children. Although these findings need to be confirmed on wider populations, the results obtained in this pilot study strongly support the relevance of hair analysis for the biomonitoring of children exposure to urban pollution and ETS.
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Sci. Total Environ. · May 2019
Global exposure to rainstorms and the contribution rates of climate change and population change.
Quantifying global population exposure to rainstorms is a key component of population risk assessments for rainstorms and induced floods. Based on daily precipitation data from the NEX-GDDP dataset, rainfall from rainstorms is first calculated by a multi-model ensemble method for four periods from 1986 to 2100. Combined with population data from the SSP2 scenario, the global population exposure to rainstorms is then calculated and analyzed. ⋯ The results showed that (1) Population exposure to rainstorms shows a linear upward trend from base period to the late 21st century period in most regions, and the mid-21st century period compared with base period has the fastest rate of increase. (2) The spatial patterns of population exposure to rainstorms are very similar for the four periods and the areas with high exposure are mainly distributed in Asia, population exposure of Africa is gradually increasing. The countries with high exposure show little volatility, especially the top eight countries. (3) The change in total exposure is mainly due to population change. Based on the composition of the total exposure change for each country, the number of countries whose climate change effect is greater than that of population change is gradually increasing, and this number reaches more than a quarter of the total when the late 21st century period is compared with the mid-21st century period.