EGU22-11223
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11223
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Future fire impact on PM2.5 pollution and attributable mortality

Chaeyeon Park1, Kiyoshi Takahashi2, Shinichiro Fujimori3, Fang Li4, Vera Ling Hui Phung5, Junya Takakura6, Tomoko Hasegawa7, and Ahihiko Ito8
Chaeyeon Park et al.
  • 1National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan (park.chaeyeon@nies.go.jp)
  • 2National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan (ktakaha@nies.go.jp)
  • 3Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan (fujimori.shinichiro.8a@kyoto-u.ac.jp)
  • 4Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (lifang@mail.iap.ac.cn)
  • 5National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan (phung.veralinghui@nies.go.jp)
  • 6National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan (takakura.junya@nies.go.jp)
  • 7Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan (thase@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp)
  • 8National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan (itoh@nies.go.jp)

Fine particulate matter with a diameter of ≤ 2.5  (PM2.5), one of the hazardous air pollutants, contributed 4.5 million to 8.9 million global mortality annually. Among the total PM2.5 related mortality, 5%–21% were attributed to fires. While anthropogenic fire has been declined by reduced land fragmentation and changed land use, climate change has increased fire activities especially in fire seasons. These fires eventually lead to high PM2.5 in many regions, leading to public health concern. However, the impact of future fires on PM2.5 and its health burden according to climate change and socioeconomic scenarios has not been studied globally. We estimated fire related PM2.5 at the end of 21st century under various future scenarios (combination of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)) and its attributable mortality. We used modified CLM and GEOSChem for simulating fire emissions and PM2.5 concentration, respectively. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) method was used for estimating attributable mortality. We also evaluated how global inequality in fire-PM2.5 mortality by income (economic inequality) would change. We found that future climate change led to higher fire-PM2.5 by increasing drought and biomass carbon density, whereas future increased GDP would offset the increase in fire-PM2.5. The results of fire-PM2.5 mortality varied significantly by SSPs. Population increase under SSP3 would lead to increase in mortality and economic inequality. The total fire-PM2.5 mortality decreased under SSP1–4, but the economic inequality increased under SSP4. If the world follows SSP1-RCP2.6 scenario, fire-PM2.5 mortality would reduce about 40% and improve economic equality.

This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (JPMEERF20202002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan.

How to cite: Park, C., Takahashi, K., Fujimori, S., Li, F., Phung, V. L. H., Takakura, J., Hasegawa, T., and Ito, A.: Future fire impact on PM2.5 pollution and attributable mortality, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11223, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11223, 2022.

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