abooalfazl azhdarpoor; Aezam Mohammadi Mohammadi; Abbas Shahsavani
Volume 5, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 79-85
Abstract
Background:Air pollutants have harmful impacts on human health and aggravation of diseases and mortality. This study was conducted to investigate the impact of PM10, NO2, SO2, and O3 on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality and hospital admissions in Shiraz during 2012-2013.Methods: The health impact ...
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Background:Air pollutants have harmful impacts on human health and aggravation of diseases and mortality. This study was conducted to investigate the impact of PM10, NO2, SO2, and O3 on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality and hospital admissions in Shiraz during 2012-2013.Methods: The health impact of pollutants was quantified using AirQ2.2.3 model provided by WHO Regional Office-European Center for Environment and Health. In addition, Generalized Additive Model (GAM) in R was used to investigate the relationship between pollutants and disease and mortality.Results:According to the results of quantification with WHO’s default values for Baseline Incidence (BI) and Relative Risk (RR) as well as the number of hospital admissions related to PM10 (1,375 cases in 2012 and 874 ones in 2013), it has been observed that respiratory diseases have had the highest health impacts. On the other hand, an assessment using regional values for BI and RR indicated that the highest health impacts were related to respiratory diseases due to exposure to O3 with 134 and 252 cases in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Moreover, significant relationships were observed among PM10, NO2, and O3 and respiratory mortality, hospital admissions due to cardiovascular diseases, and hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases in patients aging 65 years and older.Conclusion:Overall, the results showed that due to different geographical, statistical, and climatic features of each region, WHO’s default values for BI and RR cannot be used normally in some cases. Thus, calculated BI and RR values should be used for such cases. However, further research is needed to assess the health impacts of air pollutants in terms of BI and RR specific to the study region.
Fahime Khademi; Mohammad Reza Samaei; Kourosh Azizi; Abbas Shahsavani; Hassan Hashemi; Aida Iraji; Abdolkhalegh Miri
Volume 4, Issue 1 , January 2016, , Pages 2-6
Abstract
AbstractBackground: Biogas is obtained by anaerobic decomposition of organic wastes buried materials used to produce electricity, heat and biofuels. Biogas is at the second place for power generation after hydropower and in 2000 about 6% of the world power generation was allocated to biogas. Biogas is ...
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AbstractBackground: Biogas is obtained by anaerobic decomposition of organic wastes buried materials used to produce electricity, heat and biofuels. Biogas is at the second place for power generation after hydropower and in 2000 about 6% of the world power generation was allocated to biogas. Biogas is composed of 40–45 vol% CO2, 55–65 vol% CH4, and about 1% non-methaneVOCs, and non-methane volatile organic compounds. Emission rates are used to evaluate the compliance with landfill gas emission regulations by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). BTEX comounds affect the air quality and may be harmful to human health. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene isomers that are generally called BTEX compounds are the most abundant VOCs in biogas.Methods: Sampling of VOCs in biogas vents was operated passively or with Tedlar bags. 20 samples were collected from 40 wells of old and new biogas sites of Shiraz’ landfill. Immediately after sampling, the samples were transferred to the laboratory. Analysis of the samples was performed with GC-MS.Results: The results showed that in the collection of the old and new biogas sites, the highest concentration of VOCs was observed in toluene (0.85ppm) followed by benzene (0.81ppm), ethylbenzene (0.13ppm) and xylene (0.08ppm).Conclusion: The results of the study showed that in all samples, most available compounds in biogas vents were aromatic hydrocarbon compounds.These compounds’ constituents originate from household hazardous waste materials deposited in the landfill or from biological/chemical decomposition processes within the landfill.