Several potential refinements to the methods employed in this study might be implemented in the future based on continuing scientific work. For example, the dispersion modelling that underpins analysis of the regional pollutants
Discussion
could be improved. Similarly, the country-specific pollutant damage costs can be developed when new source-receptor matrices are generated by the EMEP chemical transport model. The matrices used for the present work date back to 2006 and the EMEP model has since been refined. This revision of the matrices might not, however, be done until 2012–2013 due to the demands of other work presently being undertaken by EMEP.
The response functions for quantifying the impacts of the major regional pollutants are under regular review. The European Commission is presently undertaking a review of the EU air quality legislation to be completed by 2013 and in this context will ask the Task Force on Health led by WHO-Europe under the LRTAP Convention (UNECE, 1979) to consider in detail modifications to the current set of functions.
Further to the analysis presented in this report, the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh has performed additional life-table analysis to inform cost-benefit analysis such as that being used in the current revision to the Gothenburg Protocol under the LRTAP Convention (Miller et al., 2011). The study considered the sensitivity of national populations to a unit change in exposure to fine particulate matter. Initial analysis for Italy and Sweden suggested that there was little error associated with basing European analysis on results for the population of England and Wales. The England and Wales results were used in the mortality analysis for fine particulate matter in terms of loss of longevity presented in the CAFE work and also used in the present report. However, subsequent analysis for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia and the Russian Federation showed that the populations in those countries were more sensitive than those in the countries originally considered, perhaps due to differences in life expectancy (Figure 4.1). Results were particularly significant for the Russian Federation, reflecting especially the very limited life expectancy of Russian men (the top left data point in Figure 4.1).
These results were discussed at the May 2011 meeting of the WHO Task Force on Health, which concluded that they should be factored into analysis immediately. Unfortunately this has not been possible for the present report, which probably implies a bias toward underestimation of damage costs here.
Figure 4.1 Relationship between life
expectancy and life years lost per 100 000 people from a one-year
change in exposure to PM2.5 of 1 µg.m-3 R2 = 0.914 0 50 100 150 200 250 60 65 70 75 80 85 90
Life years lost/100 k people
Life expectancy (years) Russian Federation
Male Female
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania
England/Wales, Italy, Sweden
Further methodological refinements that might be introduced during the next year or so concern: • quantifying chronic effects of PM2.5 exposure
on mortality against cause-specific death rates rather than, as at present, total death rates; • quantifying possible effects of chronic exposure
to ozone on mortality, based on the work of Jerrett et al. (2009);
• revising the quantification of chronic bronchitis impacts linked to PM2.5 exposure, based on results of the Swiss SAPALDIA study (Schindler et al., 2009).
The most important of these changes may concern chronic exposure to ozone and its effects on mortality. The other changes may not make a great deal of difference to analysis for the European population, whereas inclusion of chronic effects on mortality could greatly increase the overall significance of ozone impacts.
Quantifying the impacts of regional air pollutants on ecosystems may be possible in the medium term through studies using the 'ecosystem services' approach. Some advances have been made in this area recently through work by Jones et al. (2011) and Mills et al. (2011). A possible halfway step to this goal would be to use the pollution transfer matrices to assess the contribution of E-PRTR facilities to exceedance of critical loads and levels across Europe. Quantifying the damage costs associated with heavy metals raises uncertainties because data on deposition suggest much higher emissions than are accounted for in available inventories (Fowler et al., 2006). This may in part be linked to instances where facilities included in the E-PRTR emit below the respective reporting thresholds for heavy metals or simply fail to report emissions of some pollutants. For greenhouse gases it would be useful to have a wider European debate on the values used in analysing damage costs (e.g. whether to use damage costs or, as in this report, an estimate of marginal abatement costs). Some useful information should be forthcoming from the European Commission- funded ClimateCost project, which is due to report in late 2011. Until such information or agreement is available, a pragmatic approach, as implemented here, is to report damage costs both with and without including greenhouse gases.
One improvement for the sectoral analysis presented here would be to supplement the point- source data from the E-PRTR with information from national emission inventories that summarise total emissions from each sector. This would at least partially address concerns that not all facilities report all emissions and the lack of data from facilities that are not required to report to the E-PRTR. This extension of the analysis would be particularly useful for the agriculture sector, since it accounts for the vast majority of NH3 emissions in Europe and most operators are unlikely to be included under the E-PRTR.
4.3 Changes to the E-PRTR to facilitate