Ammonia emissions can cause tiny particles in the air to harm our health, but many countries have no policies in place to limit its release into the atmosphere. Air pollution is one of the most serious environmental threats to human health. Countries can reduce the burden of disease caused by stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma, by lowering air pollution levels.
An international study using a modeling framework discovered that reducing pollution from nitrogen compound emissions, particularly ammonia, could save many of the 23.3 million years of life lost prematurely around the world in 2013 due to nitrogen-related air pollution.
Combating pollution caused by nitrogen compounds, particularly ammonia, could save many of the 23.3 million years of life lost prematurely around the world in 2013 due to nitrogen-related air pollution, according to an international study led by Chinese scientists that used a modeling framework that included the IIASA GAINS model.
The GAINS model is an ideal tool for aligning abatement costs and air pollution effects, allowing for robust policy recommendations. We can now look more easily into pollution-related effects such as biodiversity or climate change, both of which are severely impacted by nitrogen compounds.
IIASA researcher Shaohui Zhang
The IIASA GAINS model, among other tools, was used by a research team led by scientists from Zhejiang University in China to develop a new metric called the ‘Nitrogen-share’ (N-share) to estimate the contribution of nitrogen compounds to PM2.5 (fine particle) air pollution and the associated health effects.
N-share expresses the contribution of a given nitrogen-containing compound to a given effect. PM2.5 air pollution is the world’s leading environmental risk factor for human health. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen compounds, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted by fossil fuel combustion in power plants, industrial furnaces, or boilers, as well as vehicle emissions, and ammonia (NH3) emitted primarily from agricultural and natural sources, are important precursors of PM2.5 formation in the atmosphere.
A cost-benefit analysis revealed that ammonia mitigation is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve global air quality and public health, according to the study published in Science. The researchers used three atmospheric chemistry transport models to simulate total PM2.5 concentrations with and without nitrogen compound emissions, and they discovered that NH3 emissions contribute more to PM2.5 than NOx emissions. Using the GAINS model developed by IIASA, the team was able to quantify the potential for emissions reductions as well as the financial costs associated with such measures.
They compared the costs of nitrogen compound abatement implementation across sectors and countries with the benefits of reduced mortality to estimate the overall effects of abatement programs and draw important policy conclusions.
The study found that:
- The contribution of NH3 to PM2.5 is greater than that of NOx globally and in most countries, indicating that NH3 is more strongly limiting PM2.5 formation than NOx.
- Between 1990 and 2013, the total number of years of life lost due to PM2.5 pollution caused by nitrogen compound emissions increased from 19.5 to 23.3 million worldwide.
- The global average marginal cost of premature mortality caused by nitrogen compound emissions was 33% higher in 2013 than in 1990, owing to rising emissions and a greater willingness to invest in health care.
The study looked at the costs and benefits of reducing NH3 and NOx emissions and discovered that the global average cost in US dollars of reducing NH3 emissions ($1.5 per kg of NH3-N) is more than four times lower than the global health benefits ($6.9 per kg of NH3-N), but the abatement cost of NOx emissions ($16 per kg of NOx-N) is more than two times higher than the global health benefits ($7.3 per kg of NOx-N). This effectively means that the marginal global cost of ammonia emission reduction is only 10% of the cost of nitrogen oxide emission reduction, implying that ammonia reduction is both cheaper and more effective.
“The GAINS model is an ideal tool for aligning abatement costs and air pollution effects, allowing for robust policy recommendations,” said IIASA researcher Shaohui Zhang. Wilfried Winiwarter, an IIASA researcher, added that the N-share approach has great value because of its broad applicability across impact studies.
“We’ve started looking at N compounds because they allow for novel perspectives on identifying measures that benefit the environment in more than one way,” he explained. “We can now look more easily into pollution-related effects such as biodiversity or climate change, both of which are severely impacted by nitrogen compounds.”
Nitrogen cycles at multiple scales have been the focus of a variety of IIASA activities, as compounds investigated to allow for different perceptions of seemingly unrelated problems, as well as the identification of pathways of joint solutions aimed at a variety of environmental impacts at the same time.
