Air Pollution: Urban Grime Recycles Toxics

Air toxics regulatory issues facing urban settings.

Biomarker research does not exist in isolation. Its usefulness can only be realized when it is translated into prevention strategies to protect public health. In the context of air toxics, these prevention strategies begin with the development of regulatory standards derived from risk assessment schemes. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 list 189 air toxics, including many volatile organics,...

Urban Air Pollution Modeling

All life form on this planet depends on clean air. Air quality not only affects human health but also components of environment such as water, soil, and forests, which are the vital resources for human development. Urbanization is a process of relative growth in a country’s urban population accompanied by an even faster increase in the economic, political, and cultural importance of cities rela...

Pollution Portrait: The Fourth National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment

AIR POLLUTION: New Rules Proposed for Power Plant Toxics

Strontium-90 is a radioactive by-product of fission reactions within nuclear reactors that generate electricity. About 3% of the mass of spent nuclear fuel consists of fission products including strontium-90. Because of its high decay energy and its long half-life of 30 years—it takes hundreds of years to decay naturally to harmless levels—strontium-90 is classified a high-level waste. Strontiu...

Chapter 17 Urban air pollution

Current scientific evidence, derived largely from studies in North America and Western Europe (NAWE), indicates that urban air pollution, which is derived largely from combustion sources, causes a spectrum of health effects ranging from eye irritation to death. Recent assessments suggest that the impacts on public health may be considerable. This evidence has increasingly been used by national ...